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From "The Uplift of Chiiii 



The Call of China 
and the Islands 



Report of the Foreign Deputation, 191 1 — 

1912, for every Member of the 

United Brethren Church 



by 



G. M. MATHEWS, D. D., 

Bishop of the Central District 

S. S. HOUGH. D. D., 

Secretary Foreign Missionary Society 
Foreword by Bishop W. M. BELL, D. D. 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST 

Dayton, Ohio 






By transfer 
The W.' te House 



Jfnrrmorb 

THE expansion of the kingdom of God 
throughout the whole earth is now the 
most urgent project appealing to the human 
mind. By direct and indirect effort this su- 
premely constructive factor in human progress 
is being set forward. Diplomacy, travel, com- 
merce, science, invention — all are making indirect 
contributions. The direct contribution is coming 
from those who have caught a vision of the aims 
of Christ for the world, and have accepted their 
responsibility under the great commission. 

Investment of life and money in carrying out 
the comprehensive program of Christ for the 
whole human race is the highest wisdom. No 
note of regret has ever come from those who 
have acted upon this principle. Invariably it 
has been found that such investment has yielded 
dividends ample and rich. Other investments of 
life and energy have been found deeply and bit- 
terly disappointing. 

Not so with those who put themselves into 
comradeship with Christ and consecrate life to his 
aims. They find the content of Christ and his 
gospel rich beyond all anticipation. They find 
service with him glorious and compensating. 
They know in absolute certainty that either 
within their own life time or in the days that 



follow their going hence, their seed-sowing will 
not fail of fruitage and increase. 

No human life can be perfected save in service 
in the kingdom of God. Jesus, the Lord of all 
life, stands for the dedication of all life to him, 
as also of all wealth to him. This is not any 
arbitrary law, but because it is the way to our 
own and the world's enrichment and salvation. 
Christ points and leads ever to the great problem 
of spiritual regeneration and stewardship. 

Wealth is either a trust to be administered, or 
a peril to be escaped. The love of money is a 
most insidious danger. There is really no such 
thing as human ownership. Instead of owning 
his wealth the rich man owes it. It requires 
great character to enable one to make of wealth 
a friend to lead him to heaven and heavenly 
reward. 

The Church of the United Brethren in Christ 
has made commendable progress in all its invit- 
ing foreign missions. Great leaders are at work 
in every one of them. We have offered a list 
of noble martyrs and paid the price of blood. A 
half century of work abroad has brought us to 
definite demands and graciously enlarging re- 
quirements. The primary work of evangelism 
has brought its fruits and problems. The native 
church is accepting a larger responsibility and 
reaching a capacity for initiative and administra- 
tion. Institutions for the training of the native 
leadership and for the relief of human suffering 
are called for, and the siege work of the kingdom 

4 



is at hand. All the agencies of Christian civili- 
zation are to be inaugurated. 

Occasional visits to the foreign fields by the 
officials of the home Church have always been 
fruitful of good. The rapidly growing native 
church presents new and complex problems which 
call for closer supervision on the part of those 
who administer foreign missions so as to put to 
the best possible use the lives and the money 
invested in the work. 

The past year was set apart by the Church for 
a visit and thorough study of four of our foreign 
fields. Bishop G. M. Mathews, D.D., made a 
visit to Porto Rico during January and February, 
and S. S. Hough, D.D,, General Secretary of our 
Foreign Missionary Society, visited Japan, China, 
and the Philippines from October to April. 

The present volume is the report of these visits 
for the membership of the Church at large. The 
remarkable transformations that are taking place 
in our foreign fields are here vividly set forth. 
Ever>^ member of our denomination will be 
greatly enriched by reading this report. A large 
opportunity is here set before us. The plans 
and policies recommended were carefully con- 
sidered in detail at the recent Board meeting, and 
with absolute unanimity approved. There is no 
mistake but that we face an opportunity which 
will not find a parallel in the life of the present 
generation of United Brethren. Our supreme 
hour is upon us and we dare not, must not fail. 

A copy of this book in every home of the 
Church will go far toward guaranteeing a suit- 

S 



able and adequate response to our opportunity. 
Let earnest, continuous prayer rise to God for 
this work. We must do heroic giving, though 
nothing unreasonable is asked. An income to 
the Foreign Board of $150,000 annually for the 
next five years, plus the equipment called for, 
will execute the schedule and set forward greatly 
the Christianizing of the world. Let us not dis- 
appoint Christ in this gracious hour. 

(Bishop) Wm. M. Bell, 

President Board of Foreign Missions, 

United Brethren in Christ, 



Chapter Page 

Foreword. 

I. New China By S. S. Hough, D.D. 11 

II. Progressive Japan. ..By S. S. Hough, D.D. 47 

III. The Advancing Philippines 

By S. S. Hough, D.D. 68 

IV. Beautiful Porto Rico 

By Bishop G. M. Mathews, D.D. 92 

V. What Shall Be Our Response? 107 

Appendix — Books for Further Investigation 120 

ILLUSTRATIONS 

China's Republican Leaders, Sun Yat Sen and 

Yuan Shih Kai Frontispiece 

Ward, Howard, and Oldt Locating on the Map 

Our Responsibility in South China 16 

Parade Celebrating the Closing of the Gambling- 

Dens, Canton 16 

Calisthenics Class, Miller Seminary, Canton 17 

One of China's Idols 32 

The Ancient Wall of Canton Disappearing 32 

Bed Time at the Foundling Home! 

Beth Eden Compound, Canton [ 33 

Doctor Oldt Removing a Polypus J 

The New Emperor of Japan 48 

Our Japanese Pastors at Breakfast 49 

Intermediate Boys and Girls, Honjo U. B. Sun- 
day School, Tokyo 64 

Bird's-Eye View of the Doshisha 64 

Harajuku U. B. Church, Tokyo 65 

On the Way to Annual Conference, Philippines. 80 

San Fernando U. B. Church 80 

Professor Camilo Osias 81 

Missionaries in the Making, Philippines 88 

Filipino Boys and Girls 88 

Quarterly Conference and Business Meeting at 

Balaoan 89 

Lay Delegates, Philippine Conference 89 

Public School, Juana Diaz 96 

Coming Porto Rican Citizens 96 

Lay Delegates, Pastors, and Missionaries, Porto 

Rico U. B. Mission Conference 97 

El Pino U. B. Chapel 112 

Mt. Hermon Rest Cottage, Porto Rico 112 

United Brethren Headquarters, Ponce 113 



®I|? (Hall of Ollima 
atii tl|? Sslanba 



I. 



When I left America in October, 1911, to 
inspect the mission work in China, the Philip- 
pines, and Japan, the daily papers announced in 
striking headlines that China was in the throes 
of a mighty civil war. On arrival at Honolulu 
the reports from China indicated that the revo- 
lution had gained alarming proportions. Eleven 
days later, when our steamship Manchuria an- 
chored at Yokohama, Japan, we learned that 
millions of Chinese had cut off their queues. The 
queue was the sign of allegiance to the Manchus. 
It then took just two nights for the queues of 
the one hundred and seventy-five Chinese stew- 
ards and waiters on our ship to disappear to the 
hearty applause of the passengers. 

When we arrived in the midst of China, it be- 
came clear that the revolution could no more be 
put down than the tides of the sea could be 
pushed back. The outside world did not realize 
that China had been prepared thoroughly for a 
sweeping revolution, that she was like a great 
dry forest which needed but a match applied any- 
where to start a general conflagration. The un- 
expected took place. Like a prairie fire, the 
revolution swept from city to city, and from 
province to province, and in less than two months 
the revolutionary forces had taken fifteen of the 

11 



The Call of China and the Islands 

eighteen provinces. A new republic was organ- 
ized, and China, with one-fourth of the world's 
population, thus suddenly passed through the 
most colossal transformation known in history. 
Truly, the hour had come for God to fulfill 
prophecy, "a nation born in a day." 

One hundred and five years ago, when Robert 
Morrison started for China as its first Protestant 
missionary, a man of prominence in New York 
City sneeringly said to him, "And so, Mr. Mor- 
rison, you really expect to make an impression 
on the idolatry of China?'' "No, sir," he replied, 
"I expect God will." 

Since that day there has been a century of con- 
flict between light and darkness, and Lowell's 
significant lines have been fulfilled again : 

''Careless seems the great Avenger; 

History's pages but record 
One death grapple in the darkness 

'Twixt old systems and the Word; 
Truth forever on the scaffold, 

Wrong forever on the throne, 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, 

And behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow, 

Keeping watch above his own! 






At the time of the crisis in the revolution, the 
emperor at Peking, in perplexity, went forth to 
worship his ancestors, and to call upon their 

12 



New China 

spirits for help, while General Li, at the head 
of the revolutionary army, made his appeal to 
the living God ; and our Lord heard and wrought 
mightily for those who fought for righteousness 
and liberty, fulfilling in a wonderful way before 
our own eyes the second Psalm : "Why do the 
heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain 
thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, 
and the rulers take counsel together, against the 
Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us 
break their bands asunder, and cast away their 
cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens 
shall laugh : the Lord shall have them in derision. 
* * * Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ; 
thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's 
vessel. Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be 
instructed, ye judges of the earth." 

Causes of the Revolution. 

After studying the situation on the field in the 
midst of changing conditions, I regard the follow- 
ing as some of the chief causes of the revolution: 

1. China, by her geographical position, has 
been shut off from the rest of the world, and so 
has been a nation unto herself. Two hundred 
and seventy years ago the Manchus came down 
from the north and assisted China to win a mili- 
tary victory. They then took possession of the 
throne themselves, and so China has, since that 
time, been railed by an alien race. The Manchus 
adopted the fatal policy of sternly opposing 
Christianity and Western education. Every- 

13 



The Call of China and the Islands 

where they prevented talented, capable Chinese 
from doing the work they by special training 
were fitted to do. 

The emperor and his associates accumulated 
vast wealth. The sense of security led them to 
indolence, luxury, and vice. Two rival clans 
sprang up among the Manchus, the red girdle 
clan and the yellow girdle clan. They opposed 
each other in carrying out national policies and 
thus presented the weakness of a divided house. 

2. On the other hand, Christian missions had 
entered China and established schools and 
churches. Many of the young men and young 
women had caught the spirit of Jesus Christ and 
were being trained in the principles of Western 
education. The gospel was silently but power- 
fully permeating the lives of the leaders of new 
China. Many of these, in addition to the train- 
ing received in China, took post-graduate courses 
at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and other universi- 
ties in America and England. 

3. The anti-opium crusade, led by the mis- 
sionaries and the awakened Chinese, revealed to 
China for the first time the power of the plat- 
form. Public speaking was a new and mighty 
advance for China. Many who have intimate 
knowledge of the situation say that the revolu- 
tion could not have been won as it was if it had 
not been for the training that thousands of Chi- 
nese received during the anti-opium crusade. The 
wonderful success of this movement filled these 

14 



New China 

Chinese leaders with confidence in their ability 
to do things. 

They then formed a crusade against legalized 
gambling, which has been a curse in China for 
ages. In Canton and vicinity, where two thou- 
sand gambling shops had been paying an annual 
license of a million and a half dollars, they com- 
pelled them all to close at midnight, March 29, 
1911, and on the day following the gamblers 
themselves joined in the celebration of the vic- 
tory. Through these anti-gambling and anti- 
opium movements, young Chinese began to find 
themselves, and they felt that still greater achieve- 
ments were possible. 

4. The humiliation of China in the war with 
Japan, in 1894 and 1895, and the Boxer uprising 
in 1900, revealed the weakness of China, not only 
to the outside world, but to the Chinese leaders 
themselves. The victory of Japan over Russia, 
in 1905, strengthened the conviction that China 
must change. Some fifteen thousand of China's 
most progressive young men, who had seen a 
vision of their country's possibilities, left China 
for Japan to study the secret of the greatness and 
power of the "Sunrise Kingdom." Other stu- 
dents went to America and to England for 
special studies. 

5. Simultaneous with these significant move- 
ments and events, God had been preparing a 
young man. Sun Yat Sen, to become a construc- 
tive leader and organizer for a new epoch in 

15 



The Call of China and the Islands 

China. He was converted to Christianity when 
but a boy, caught the spirit of reform, and began 
to propagate his views among the Chinese stu- 
dents who were in Japan, America, and England. 
His new ideas were received with enthusiasm 
everywhere, and these students were ready on 
returning to China to identify themselves with 
the revolutionary forces when the hour came for 
action. In an important sense the students 
changed China to a republic. 

Washington and American Revolution 

The Chinese have been studying earnestly the 
life of George Washington and the history of the 
American Revolution. It was a constant sur- 
prise to me to see the great influence of Wash- 
ington in China. Years ago, in the public 
schools of Pennsylvania, we used to read the 
following from Edward Everett of the far- 
reaching influence of Washington: ''Beyond 
Ohio, beyond the Mississippi, along that stupen- 
dous trail of emigration from East to West, 
which, bursting into States as it moves westward, 
the name and memory of Washington will travel 
with the silver queen of heaven through sixty 
degrees of longitude, nor part company with her 
till she walks in her brightness through the 
Golden Gate. And in barbarous archipelagoes, 
as yet untrodden by civilized man, there, and 
there only, the name of Washington is unknown ; 
and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened 

16 




Ward, Howard, "and Oldt Locating on the Map Our 
Responsibility in South China. 




Parade Celebrating the Closing of the Gambling Dens, Canton. 




s 



u 



New China 

millions, new honors with ours shall be paid to 
his memory/' 

I saw this prophecy fulfilled in the Hawaiian 
Islands, in Japan, and in the Philippines, and in 
a most unexpected manner in China. As the 
revolution swept the Manchus from South China, 
prominent Chinese remarked, ^'George Washing- 
ton did it/' Many say that no one in new China 
should vote who is not acquainted with the life 
of George Washington. I was informed that 
four characters were recently presented in a 
reader for the public schools in central China, 
and these were Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, 
and Confucius. 

The Chinese newspapers backed up strongly 
the fight for liberty and made good use of the 
American revolution, as the following paragraph 
from, a Shanghai paper, printed after a tempor- 
ary defeat, will illustrate: 

*Tf we have successes, we must also have de- 
feats. Now, unfortunately, we have the news 
of defeat at Hanyang. What we have lost is 
only a corner. The New World fought seven 
years of bloody warfare before it won its inde- 
pendence. The Colonists were often defeated 
and often victorious before they cast oflF the 
yoke of Britain and set up the imposing republic 
which has become one of the great powers in 
the world. Now their people enjoy the blessing 
of equality and breathe the air of liberty. This 
was won for them by the blood and iron of their 

17 



The Call of China and the Islands 

ancestors. Had the Americans lost heart be- 
cause of repeated defeats during their bloody 
seven years' struggle, and gone about hanging 
down their heads and begging for peace, or had 
they held back and refused to advance, would 
they to-day be in the glorious position in which 
they find themselves? The heroic quality of 
their stubborn strength leads us to honor and 
bow down to them. Now, we are fighting for 
liberty, for a republic. We wish to be reckoned 
among the great powers of the earth. We refuse 
to be cattle or slaves/' 

Christian Counselors Save China. 

The integrity of China was in the balances for 
several weeks, as the conflict between Peking and 
the South became more and more acute. A dis- 
tressing famine and reports of robber bands, 
plundering, and stealing, made the situation 
more complex and difficult. Then Russia be- 
came aggressive and took steps to get control 
of Mongolia under the pretext of maintaining 
order. At the same time Japan increased her 
force of soldiers in Manchuria. 

The Christian statesmen saw the situation was 
of such a character as would certainly lead to 
the intervention of the powers and the partition 
of China unless vigorous and prompt action were 
taken at Peking. It was very fortunate for 
China that she had in her midst such men as 
Bishop Bashford, Mr. E. W. Thwing, General 

18 



New China 

Secretary of the International Reform Bureau 
of China, and Dr. Gilbert Reid, Director of the 
International Institute, which has been recog- 
nized by the Chinese government. These men 
and others were consulted by the leaders on both 
sides. Bishop Bashford assured the authorities 
that the uprising was from God and could not be 
put down. He urged the leaders on both sides 
to get together and prevent the powers from 
dividing up China. 

Mr. Thwing sent the following telegram to the 
Empress Dowager and the princes at Peking: 
"I have resided in China for many years and 
have hoped for China to reform and become rich 
and powerful. I have gone down south and am 
acquainted with the desires of the people of the 
southern provinces, who wish to accord favor- 
able treatment to the imperial house and change 
to a republic. I am on good terms with both 
the Chinese and the Manchus, and cannot bear 
to sit as I watch them destroy themselves, so 
that, as in the struggle between the shellfish and 
the eagle down in tradition, the fisherman was 
able to capture both. I hope that China will 
soon confer the blessing of a republic on the 
people, so that not only destruction of lives may 
be obviated, but that no opportunity be given to 
other countries to take advantage of the situa- 
tion.'^ 

Dr. Gilbert Reid visited in person the officials 
at Peking and presented strong reasons for the 

19 



The Call of China and the Islands 

throne to abdicate speedily. No one who knows 
the inner situation can doubt the power of these 
Christian statesmen in that hour of crisis. 

From Old to New. 

Our Chinese Annual Conference was just com- 
ing to a close in Canton when telegrams an- 
nounced the fact that the emperor of China was 
about to abdicate the throne. I took out the 
Stars and Stripes and placed the flag of the 
United States alongside the flag of the new 
Republic of China. You ought to have seen the 
faces of our Chinese Christians sparkle with en- 
thusiasm as I waved these two flags together 
and congratulated every Chinaman present on the 
privilege of living at such a time as this, when 
God is doing wonders in China for the bringing 
in of his kingdom. 

On February 12, the edicts announcing the 
imperial abdication were signed, and Dr. Sun 
Yat Sen, to unite the whole country, resigned 
as Provisional President in favor of Premier 
Yuan Shih Kai, an act that will forever enshrine 
him not only in the hearts of the millions of 
China, but of the whole civilized world. After 
numerous conferences, the National Assembly 
accepted Doctor Sun's resignation and elected 
Yuan Shih Kai president of the Republic of 
China, and adopted a provisional constitution 
which contains fifty-six articles, the fifth and 
sixth of which state : "The people of the Repub- 

20 



New China 

He of China will be treated equally, without any 
distinction of race, class, or religion. The people 
have liberty of religion." 

On March 10, President Yuan Shih Kai took 
the following oath: ''I shall endeavor faithfully 
to develop the Republic, to sweep away the dis- 
advantages attached to absolute monarchy, to 
observe the laws of the constitution, to increase 
the welfare of the country, to cement together 
a strong nation which shall embrace all five races. 
When the National Assembly elects a permanent 
president, I shall retire. This I swear before 
the Chinese Republic." 

President Yuan Shih Kai, while not a profes- 
sing Christian, has made it known that, so far as 
he understands the principles of Christianity, they 
are what he is striving for in the new govern- 
ment. He has requested the Protestant Chris- 
tians to pass on the word of religious liberty 
everyv/here. 

The Washington of China 

The one supremely interesting and great char- 
acter the revolution of China has brought to the 
attention of the world is that of Dr. Sun Yat Sen. 
He has become widely known as the ''George 
Washington of the Republic of China.'* 

Mr. Sun was born near Canton, China, the son 
of a farmer. While young in years he imbibed 
the revolutionary spirit from the example and 
teaching of an uncle who had taken part in the 

21 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Taiping rebellion, which sought to free China 
from the Manchus some fifty years ago. When 
about fourteen years of age he accepted Christ 
as his Savior. By embracing Christianity, Mr. 
Sun brought on himself the disfavor of his 
brother, who did everything possible to get him 
to renounce the Christian faith. But no perse- 
cution or persuasion on the part of his friends 
could turn him aside. He told his brother, ''I 
have an inner confidence in this faith, and I can- 
not give it up." He studied local and provincial 
politics, and early became a recognized leader in 
his village council, and there he worked out num- 
erous reforms for his own community. He stud- 
ied in the mission schools at Hongkong and Can- 
ton and became a graduate in medicine. 
Called to Deliver China 
About twenty years ago Dr. Sun Yat Sen be- 
came deeply convinced that God had called him 
to work out for China a great transformation. 
The discovery of a plan of his to capture Canton 
compelled him to leave China, and for years he 
was a wanderer in Europe and in the United 
States, with a high price on his head. His faith, 
his perseverance, and his far-sighted planning 
during these years seem marvelous. Of his 
darkest hour, while a prisoner in the Chinese 
legation in London, he says: "My despair was 
complete, and only by prayer to God could I 
gain any comfort I shall never forget the feel- 
ing that seemed to take possession of me as I 

22 



New China 

rose from my knees on the morning of Friday, 
October 16, 1897, a feeling of calmness, hopeful- 
ness, and confidence that assured me my prayer 
was heard, and filled me with hope that all would 
yet be well." 

In the midst of the conflict for liberty in China, 
Doctor Sun returned to his native land, and he 
was elected at once the first president of the new 
Republic of China. A few months later, the 
sterling greatness of this man was shown in his 
self-denying act of retiring from the presidency 
in order to bring the North and the South to- 
gether. 

Dr. Sun Yat Sen made a remarkable speech 
at a farewell banquet given him after his resig- 
nation as president. He said: ''The republic is 
established in China and, though I am laying 
down the office of provisional president, this does 
not mean that I am going to cease to work for 
the cause. China has been under the domination 
of the Manchus for two hundred and seventy 
years. During that time many attempts have 
been made to regain independence. Fifty years 
ago the Taiping rebellion was such an attempt, 
but that was merely a revolution of the race, 
the Chinese against the Manchus. Had that 
uprising been successful, the country would still 
have been under an autocratic government. This 
would not count success. Some years ago a few 
of us in Japan founded the Revolutionary Society. 
W« decided on three great principles: 1. Th« 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Chinese people to be supreme as a race, and not 
to be under the domination of an alien race. 2. 
The people to be supreme in government. 3. 
The people to be supreme in the wealth produc- 
tion." 

Since he resigned the presidency, Doctor Sun 
has been going to the provinces that have been 
unsettled and explaining the meaning and signifi- 
cance of the new republic. No one else in all 
the world could do this important work as effec- 
tively as he is doing it. 

Reconstruction a Colossal Task 

Without living in the midst of the changing 
conditions in China, it is impossible to conceive 
the magnitude of the task that now confronts the 
leaders and Christian workers of the new repub- 
lic. Five races, namely, the Chinese, the Man- 
chus, the Mongolians, the Mohammedans, and the 
Tibetans, are to be combined into one republic. 
The superstition and corruption of the officials 
have been appalling. Local and provincial jeal- 
ousies abound. Lawless bands are everywhere 
robbing and kidnaping. Only about ten per cent, 
of the population can read and write. The gov- 
ernment is wholly without the necessary money 
to conduct its own affairs, to say nothing of the 
money needed to start a school system that will 
be adequate. 

The leaders of new China now face the serious 
fact that "popular government is not in itself a 

24 



New China 

panacea, that it is no better than any other form, 
except as the virtue and wisdom of the people 
make it so." 

It will take much time and great patience and 
wisdom for the new republic to become estab- 
lished. Following the American Revolution it 
required six years to frame our Constitution. 
Under most favorable conditions it will take 
China, with her hundreds of millions of people 
and her complex problems, a much longer period 
to work out her new system of government. 

One who is intimately acquainted with the 
whole situation, writes: "We are amazed at the 
unique opportunities of the new epoch; we are 
bewildered by the unparalleled responsibilities 
and dangers. If ever there was a call to help a 
nation turn a corner in human history, America 
is called to help China in the present crisis." 
What an unspeakable opportunity is before the 
Christian church to give China at this time the 
truth and light of God, which must be incorpor- 
ated in the very heart of the republic to insure 
for it the stability and wisdom necessary to make 
the experiment of self-governm.ent a blessing 
rather than a curse. 

Power of Christian Missions 

The revolution in China is a declaration of the 
power of Christian missions and of Christian 
ideals. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been 
slowly but surely transforming the nation. 

25 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Chinese leaders are now beginning to see the 
power of the gospel. The Governor-General of 
the Fukien Province said recently, ''The present 
great upheaval is due to the missionaries who 
faced the perils of the sea and the pains of 
separation from home and homeland to bring 
to us the teachings of Christ." 

Against stubborn opposition and martyrdom 
the gospel has been getting a deepening grip on 
China. In 1842, after the missionaries had been 
at work for thirty-five years, there were but six 
communicant members in the Protestant Church 
in China. Some of the workers on the field at 
that time expressed the conviction that if the 
work could be carried forward faithfully there 
would be a thousand converts at the end of the 
century. But, thank God, history has recorded 
the fact that there were one hundred thousand 
converts in China in 1900, and at present there 
are 278,628 communicant members and a Chris- 
tian constituency of 750,000. 

Faithful Unto Death 

The persecutions through which the Chinese 
Christians passed during the Boxer uprising re- 
vealed their faith in God and their loyalty to the 
truth when once they accept the gospel. "I 
recall," says Bishop Bashford, who has spent the 
last eight years in China, "the case of a pastor, 
wife, son, and daughter, whose lives the Chinese 
offered them if they would simply step upon st 

26 



New China 

piece of paper with the name of Jesus written 
upon it; they refused and died as. martyrs. At 
Chien An one hundred and twelve school boys 
were cut to pieces or burned and the local 
preacher was bound to a temple pillar. As he 
continued preaching, a Boxer cried, 'You still 
preach, do you?' and slit his mouth from ear to 
ear. Another church member was buried alive. 
Ten thousand Protestant Christians are said to 
have suffered martyrdom. A nation which fur- 
nishes such specimens has in it the material out 
of which republics are formed.'' 

A New Program. 

It is felt on all sides that mission work in 
China must be unified, intensified, and greatly 
enlarged to meet the new situation. Important 
interdenominational councils will be held during 
this fall and winter with such leaders as John R. 
Mott and Sherwood Eddy. A new program for 
the evangelization of the great republic will be 
agreed upon. 

Without any question, educated men will be 
the leaders in every walk of life. The question 
of first importance is, Shall that leadership have 
Christian or pagan training f That question zvill 
be settled largely by what the Christian church 
does or fails to do the next ten years. 

China cannot have colleges which give Western 
education until she has high schools, and the 
grammar and primary grades must come before 

27 



The Call of China and the Islands 

the high school. Hence, China must begin at 
the beginning, and there will be an unprecedented 
call for teachers. Think of the task of develop- 
ing an adequate school system out of the chaotic 
conditions existing among the four hundred mil- 
lions in China ! The opportunity of ages is right 
now upon the Christian church to establish in 
China an adequate number of Christian middle 
or high schools, colleges, universities, and theo- 
logical seminaries, and thus provide Christian 
teachers and Christian pastors for new China. 

The situation is so extraordinary as to make 
one restless. It is to the Christian schools al- 
ready established that the government is now 
looking for her leading educators. Professor 
Chung, of the Canton Christian College, was ap- 
pointed recently as Commissioner of Education 
for the entire Province of Kwantung, where there 
are thirty-one million people, in the center of 
which is the city of Canton with a population of 
two millions. This is but an illustration of the 
opportunity before the Christian church and the 
Christian schools in China. 

United Brethren Work and Workers 

In order to make thorough investigations of 
mission work in China and the Philippines, I 
requested Dr. A. T. Howard, who has had many 
years of experience in Japan, to accompany me 
to these fields. Though China was in the midst 
of a mighty war, we found our missionaries 



New China 

calm and busy at work right through the transi- 
tion period. In all the port cities missionaries 
from up country were assembled in council and 
prayer, planning for the work ahead. It was a 
most favorable time to have interdenominational 
councils. Everybody seemed to be conscious 
that a new era was at hand. It was a never- 
to-be-forgotten experience to meet for the first 
time our beloved missionaries in China during a 
national crisis. 

Rev. and Mrs. C. E. Spore had made thorough 
preparations for our visit. They looked after 
every detail to make the councils and tours of 
investigation yield the best possible results. We 
first visited and inspected our work at the Beth 
Eden Compound, including the Miller Seminary, 
which had been in session right through the revo- 
lution, with the exception of a few days. We 
heard from many sources of the power and 
initiative of Miss Belle Myers, who has done 
such splendid work in developing the Miller Sem- 
inary. Miss Mabel Drury has made marked 
progress in the mastery of the Chinese language, 
and already has become a strong factor in mis- 
sion work in Canton. 

We visited our excellent mission church and 
Sunday school on Honam, and heard the Chinese 
pastor preach an able sermon on the text: "If 
any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old 
things are passed away.'* 

29 



The Call of China and the Islands 

The preacher began his sermon by saying: 
"My text IS appropriate for this time. China 
has just become a new republic. We are turning 
from many old things to things that are new. 
Moreover, a new calendar has just been adopted 
in which China reckons the new year to begin 
with January first, and this is the first Sunday in 
the new year." Then, sweeping his hand back 
over his queueless head, he declared, "And now 
we are all citizens of this new country." Then 
he urged his audience to find new life in Jesus 
Christ that they might become "new creatures." 
The sermon was most appropriate and powerful. 

We visited our splendid Foundling Home in 
Canton, the first of its kind in all South China, 
and formally dedicated the new building January 
13. The power of this orphanage cannot be reck- 
oned by the number of outcasts it can now take 
care of and transform, but rather by its standing 
as an example of what must and will be done 
on a vastly larger scale by the awakened Chinese 
themselves. In that better day, which is now 
dawning, this Foundling Home, started by the 
women of the United Brethren Church in Amer- 
ica, will be remembered as the first work of its 
kind in South China for the "survival of the 
unfittest." In the construction of this orphanage 
and the missionary residence near by, Mr. B. F. 
Bean has shown himself to be a master builder, 
whose services will be greatly in demand in the 

30 



New China 

years to come. Mrs. Bean is recognized as an 
expert and pioneer in orphanage work. 

Our medical work in Canton, directed by Dr. 
Regina M. Bigler, has had a powerful influence. 
We found Doctor Bigler going about at all hours 
of the day and night, ministering to the sick and 
dying right through the revolution. The regular 
dispensary work was carried forward notwith- 
standing the unsettled condition of affairs. I 
attended the dispensary one day when Doctor 
Bigler said she had a light day — only one hun- 
dred and thirt)^-five persons were waiting to be 
examined and treated ! Nineteen thousand per- 
sons are ministered to annually by our doctors 
in China. 

So widely and favorably known is the work of 
Doctor Bigler that messengers come frequently 
for her services through three miles of tortu- 
ous, narrow streets, and they come at all hours 
of the day and night. The doctor responds will- 
ingly at all times, and she frequently crosses the 
entire city during the night when the only light 
to guide her is the little wax candles in the paper 
lanterns suspended from her sedan chair. 

Visit to Country Places 

Though country districts were much disturbed 
by robber bands and clan fights, we made a hasty 
visit to Kwai Chau, Lak Lau, and Siu Lam, and 
found that Dr. and Mrs. Frank Oldt had been 
at their post of duty at Siu Lam when the revo- 

31 



The Call of China and the Islands 

lutionary forces, led by a robber chief, captured 
the city, the first place taken in South China. 
No one can know, without a similar experience, 
the test and strain that came to these missionaries 
when the rumors of war were heard on all sides, 
and then when the actual conflict came and the 
city w^as taken by the revolutionary forces; but 
God wonderfully protected them. 

While in Siu Lam we witnessed a most inter- 
esting Christmas exercise in our mission chapel, 
which seats comfortably about one hundred and 
fifty persons ; but fully four hundred packed the 
building that day, and as many more stood about 
the doors and windows. This was one of the 
first public meetings held after the revolutionary 
forces were in control. An hour before the time 
for the meeting all seats were filled; then they 
began to pack the place. They stood between 
the benches, on the seats, then on the backs of 
seats, and in the aisles — a solid mass right up to 
the pulpit. In the midst of this throng were 
revolutionary soldiers carrying their guns; from 
the pulpit the whole assemblage seemed a sea of 
faces, and such wild, superstitious, sad faces! I 
wanted to take a photograph of the meeting, but 
the missionaries informed me that to turn a 
kodak on that assemblage would produce forth- 
with a panic and the loss of life. I shall carry 
the impression of that audience as long as I live. 
The contrast was most striking between our 
Christian workers and that vast crowd, many of 

32 




One of China's Idols. 

From a temple near the Canton Christian College this idol 

was taken to be burnt later. 




The Ancient Wall of Canton Disappearing. 




Beth Eden Compound, Canton. 




Bed Time at the Foundling Home. 




Doctor Oldt Removing a Polypus. 



New China 

whom, doubtless, heard that day for the hrst 
time the story of Christ's coming into the world. 

The city of Siu Lam and vicinity has a popula- 
tion of five hundred thousand, and it affords a 
most excellent opportunity for Christian work. 
Here Rev. and Mrs. E. B. Ward wrought might- 
ily for God through a number of years, and the 
influence of Dr. and Mrs. Shumaker's early work 
still lives. We should have had tw^o missionary- 
families instead of one at this place ever since 
the work was opened. The leading citizens are 
favorable to Christianity. Many of the people 
are talented, and will make splendid leaders in 
Christian work in South China when won to 
Christ and trained for service. 

While in Siu Lam we visited three different 
sites with a view to securing the best available 
location for our new hospital. This will be 
erected as soon as the unsettled condition caused 
by the revolution permits the business men of the 
town to secure legal papers for the ground. It 
is evident that Siu Lam is destined to be a center 
of mighty power in our mission work in South 
China. 

On the return visit to China from the Philip- 
pines, we took an extended tour up the West 
River to see new territory as yet unoccupied by 
Christian workers. The center of the new dis- 
trict that falls to us is Kum Chuk. I shall never 
forget the impression that came to me as we 
climbed the hill back of this city and took a bird's- 

33 



The Call of China and the Islands 

eye view of the immense population up the river 
and in territory adjacent on the east. With my 
eye, unaided by a glass, I counted eighteen towns 
in not one of which is the gospel preached. Here 
in this territory are a million people without 
medical assistance, without the Word of God, and 
without a messenger of Christ to point them to 
the Lamb of God. This ripe field falls to our 
Church to evangelize. 

Councils of War 

During the month's visit in China we had many 
interviews with mission workers of other com- 
munions, visiting and inspecting their several 
departments of work, and conferring about the 
cooperation which is needed to make the church 
in China strong enough and sufficiently equipped 
to meet the extraordinary situation before it. 

Fourteen days were given to counseling with 
our missionaries and mapping out the work that 
our Church should undertake as its reasonable 
share in the evangelization of China. 

The China x^nnual Conference was held from 
January 12 to 16. As a result of the new aims 
adopted at the Annual Conference and the inspi- 
ration received for enlarged work, the mission- 
aries declared that they never before had known 
the Chinese pastors and laymen to be as ready 
as at this time to dedicate their lives and their 
property to make the church of Christ powerful 
in China. 

34 



New China 

Team Work Planned 

It was an unexpected privilege to be in China 
during her transition from the old to the new, and 
witness the stirring scenes in connection with the 
new epoch that is dawning. After wide consul- 
tation it became clear that all the missionary 
societies at work in China should closely coor- 
dinate their work. A system of primary, gram- 
mar, and middle schools leading up to college and 
seminary work should be speedily established. 
Only in this way can a sufficient supply of min- 
isterial and lay leaders be raised up to meet the 
requirements of both church and state at this 
crucial time. 

After thorough investigation, the missionaries 
on the field in connection with the secretary 
voted unanimously the following: 1. That we 
strengthen the number of our day schools for 
boys and girls of the primary grade. 2. That the 
present boys' grammar school be enlarged and 
enriched in its course of study, and that to pro- 
vide for its needs a suitable lot and building be 
secured as soon as possible. 3. That we co- 
operate with the Canton Christian College in the 
middle school, of high-school grade, and with the 
Fati Theological Seminary at Canton in the train- 
ing of young men for the Christian ministry, 
placing a suitable representative on the faculty 
of each of these institutions as soon as possible. 
The Canadian Presbyterian and the New Zealand 
Presbyterian Missions are already cooperating 

35 



Th€ Call of China and the Islands 

with the Fati Theological Seminary. Trie Can- 
ton Christian College is interdenominatirnal and 
has a recognized standard of efficiency in all 
parts of China. It will be able to carry the 
students not only th^-ough the midd'e school, but 
also through the college courses as the work 
develops. 

A Medical University 

The need for medical missionaries in China is 
extremely great. In no other field on eartn can 
a Christian physician do a greater work for God 
and humanity. Through the work of medical 
missionaries there is now a large demand in 
China for doctors trained in Western medicine. 
Unless meciical schools of first-class standing are 
established on a Christian basis, this work will 
be undertaken soon by private corporations or by 
the government, and will be done on a much 
loAver and non-Christian basis, if not anti-Chris- 
tian. The character of the doctors of China for 
many years to come will be determined within 
the next few years. The revolution has made 
the situation more urgent. 

To provide for this great need the medical 
school, in connection with the Canton Christian 
College, is asking the various missions in South 
China to cooperate with it in establishing a Uni- 
versity Union Medical School. The object is to 
give thorough instruction in medicine and sur- 
gery to the Chinese in the English and Cantonese 

36 



New China 

languages, and thereby provide mission hospitals 
with well-trained physicians; train Chinese for 
positions as teachers in this and other medical 
schools; assist in providing the Chinese Republic 
with a Christian medical profession; take an ac- 
tive share in the investigation of the causes, pre- 
vention, and treatment of diseases pecuHar to 
China; and extend the knowledge of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ to the ninety milHons of people 
of South China coming within the sphere of 
influence of this school. 

Our missionaries heartily recommend that we 
cooperate with this proposed medical university 
by assigning a man to teach in this school, as 
soon as our medical work is sufficiently strength- 
ened to enable us to release him for it. 

A Greater Miller Seminary 

That the women of China should receive Chris- 
tian education as well as the men, is now begin- 
ning to be recognized. The ignorance among 
the women is appalling. It is said that ninety 
per cent, of the enrolled members of the Chris- 
tian church in China are men. The women have 
been utterly neglected and overlooked. While it 
is important that much greater emphasis be laid 
on the education of young men for leadership, a 
very decided movem.ent must be inaugurated for 
the education and Christianization of the women 
of China. 

37 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Since the revohition, our Miller Seminary has 
been crowded to its utmost capacity, and many 
applicants have been turned away. The present 
enrollment is sixty-six, the largest in its history. 
Because of unsanitary conditions and the want of 
sufficient land adjacent, it is absolutely necessary 
to relocate this school. A year ago our board 
recommended that our entire compound at Beth 
Eden be sold and that we secure suitable locations 
elsewhere for the Miller Seminary and the nec- 
essary missionary residences. 

During our visit to Canton, business m.en from 
Hongkong, on their own initiative, interviewed us 
with a view to purchasing this valuable property. 
Owing to unsettled conditions, it may be some 
months, or even years, before a satisfactory sale 
can be made; but steps should be taken at once 
for the relocation of the Miller Seminary and 
the erection of modern buildings, in which a 
vastly greater work must be done for the educa- 
tion of the young women of China. 

New Buildings and Grounds 

We sought to secure, while in China, a definite 
statement of the absolute needs of our mission 
for chapels, school buildings, missionary resi- 
dences, and dispensaries. For two years our 
missionaries had been investigating this subject. 
After the approval of the program on education, 
just stated, the missionaries voted unanimously 
the following: 

38 



New China 

1. A new chapel and dispensary building com- 
bined for our First Church, Canton. Present 
communicant membership, 151. The present 
building is dilapidated, and is in danger of col- 
lapsing. This church is in a center of 200,000 
population. The dispensary facilities connected 
with the present building are utterly inadequate. 

2. Groimd and residences for evangelistic and 
medical workers in Canton, when the Beth Eden 
compound is sold. 

3. Ground and building for our grammar 
school in Canton. The scliool is but two years 
old. Since the revolution it has entirely out- 
grown its rented quarters. This school will be- 
come a powerful factor in our China mission. 

4. At Siu Lam we have a church membership 
of ninety-eight, with a constituency of five hun- 
dred thousand. The city authorities are seeking 
for a site for our new hospital. We need at once 
a residence for the physician who will have 
charge of the hospital. 

5. A new mission station is to be opened at 
Kum Chuk in the Lak Lau District, where a mil- 
lion people arc without any gospel privileges. 
Two missionary families, a medical man and 
wife, and an evangelistic missionary and wife 
are to start this work. Missionary residences 
should be provided before these missionaries are 
on the ground, for it will be impossible for 
American missionaries to find suitable quarters 
in that district. 

39 



The Call of China and the Islands 

6. Grounds and buildings for the greater Mil- 
ler Seminary. This is an urgent and pressing 
need. 

7. A residence for the middle school represen- 
tative on the faculty of the Canton Christian 
College. 

8. A residence for our representative on the 
faculty of the proposed union medical university. 

The total amount needed for the grounds, 
buildings, and equipment here named will be 
$81,000. We already have on hand for the relo- 
cation of the Miller Seminary five thousand dol- 
lars. The amount needed for buildings and 
equipment aggregates $76,000. 

Missionaries Needed 

After a careful survey of the entire field, the 
follov^dng are the missionaries necessary to direct 
the work: 

For Evangelistic Work — Three men and wives, 
one single woman for country work, and one 
single woman for work in Canton. Total, eight. 

For Educational Work — A man and wife to 
teach in the Middle School and direct the work 
of the boys' school, a man and wife for the Fati 
Union Seminary, two women for the Miller Sem- 
inary. Total, six. 

For Medical Work — A man and wife in charge 
of the hospital at Siu Lam, two women for Can- 
ton, a man and wife for the Lak Lau district, a 

40 



New China 

man and wife for the proposed medical univer- 
sity at Canton. Total, eight. 

For Philanthropic Work — A man and wife to 
have charge of the Foundling Home. 

Total missionary force needed, twenty-four. 

Of the above number, eleven are on the field 
and four others have been appointed and will 
sail in October. We need, therefore, nine new 
missionaries for South China, as follows: Two 
medical missionaries and their wives, two single 
women for evangelistic work, a missionary fam- 
ily to teach in the middle school of the Canton 
Christian College, and a single medical mission- 
ary. Three of these, namely, a physician and 
his wife and a single woman for evangelistic 
work should be sent out immediately. 

Outstanding Impressions 

The following are the outstanding impressions 
of my contact with China: 

1. The Vast Multitudes of People. Every- 
where, on the rivers, in the country districts, and 
in cities, great throngs of people are seen. It is 
said that there are over four million persons in 
Canton and in the vicinitv less than ten miles 
away. China contains more inhabitants than are 
found in the United States, South America, Can- 
ada, and Africa combined. Every fourth person 
born on earth looks into the face of a Chinese 
mother. The population of China aggregates 
four hundred and thirty millions. But these 

41 



The Call of China and the Islands 

numbers are meaningless. Imagine half the 
population of the United States packed into the 
single State of Missouri, and you will have an 
idea of the situation in China. Let ten thousand 
Chinese pass by every day, then you must hear the 
tramp, tramp, tramp of the weary throng for 
one hundred years, and still there will be sixty- 
five millions yet to pass in the procession. 

2. Their Extreme Poverty. The average 
wage for the laboring man in China is but eight 
cents a day. Millions have not one meal ahead. 
Hence, great famines always follow floods. Mul- 
titudes never eat meat, save possibly the head or 
tail of a fish, or part of a dog, cat, or rat. The 
struggle for existence is most intense. 

Professor E. A. Ross, of the University of 
Wisconsin, who recently toured through the in- 
terior of China, thus describes the poverty and 
hardships of the Chinese laborers: "Our chair 
and baggage carriers had no wraps or change 
of clothing. Eight successive days of rain 
brought them to a state, of utter misery. After 
twelve hours of splashing and slipping up and 
down the mountain roads, fording swollen tor- 
rents in a cold drizzle, under a weight of from 
seventy to ninety pounds, they would come at 
evening utterly exhausted to a cheerless, com- 
fortless Chinese inn — no fire, no clothing, save 
two soaked cotton garments, no bed and no blan- 
kets, and for supper nothing but rice and bean 
curd." 

42 



New China 

3. Ignorance and Superstition, Not one man 
in ten in China, nor more than one woman in a 
thousand, can read; and those who have been 
educated according to the Chinese standard have 
their faces to the past and their backs to the 
future. Hence, the stagnant condition of the 
country. The Chinese are a very superstitious 
people. Multitudes live in constant terror of 
evil spirits. The people appear to be wanting in 
religious conceptions and they seem spiritually 
dead. 

The day I entered Kum Chuk, the center of a 
district of a million, to which territory we hope 
to carry the gospel soon, I saw a man dying on 
a narrow, filthy street of the city. Hundreds of 
Chinese were passing by, buying and selling, but 
the crowd did not so much as look at this 
wretched man in his last agony. It was neces- 
sary for us to pass on quickly or our presence 
might have incited a mob. 

Two hours later when we returned along the 
same street the man was dead. I asked why he 
had been carried to that cold, filthy place to die, 
and was told it would be considered a calamity 
in China for a man to die in a house not his 
own. 

Dead bodies are put into coffins and sometimes 
are kept for months and even for years until a 
geomancer discovers a lucky day and a lucky 
place for the interment. A missionary who has 
been in China for thirty years informed me that 

43 



The Call of China and the Islands 

he was called recently to bury a man who had 
been dead sixty years. He asked the people of 
the town how many inhabitants were Hving in 
the place, and was told there were twenty-five 
thousand. Then he asked, ''How many unburied 
dead bodies are here?'' They told him eighteen 
thousand. It will take years of gospel work to 
break the power of superstition in China. 

4. The Strength and Initiative of the Chinese. 
When freed from the bondage of superstition the 
Chinese have shown themselves to be progressive 
and trustworthy to a remarkable degree. 

They have graded society, as follows: ''First, 
the scholar, because mind is superior to wealth. 
Second, the farmer, because the mind cannot act 
without body and body cannot exist without food. 
Third, the mechanic, because next to food, shel- 
ter is a necessity. Fourth, the tradesman, be- 
cause as society increases, men to carry on ex- 
change and barter are a necessity. Fifth, the 
soldier stands last and lowest in the list, because 
his business is to destroy and not to build up 
society.'' 

The Chinese who have been trained in the mis- 
sion schools and have caught the inspiration of 
civilization are proving themselves to be capable 
of managing business affairs. While in Shang- 
hai, I had the privilege of visiting the Commer- 
cial Press, Limited. Fourteen years ago this 
company was started by Christian Chinese who 
had learned the printing trade while employed in 

44 



New China 

the Presbyterian mission. They enlarged their 
plant from time to time until at present they 
have a capital of one million dollars and employ 
eight hundred men. They have branch offices in 
each of the eighteen provinces. Their business 
is managed on the cooperative plan, profits being 
shared with their employees. This printing es- 
tablishment, started under the inspiration and 
direction of Christian missions, is now the largest 
in all Asia. It illustrates the progressive spirit 
of the Christian young men of China. 

Rapid Reconstruction 

Within three months after the revolution had 
swept over South China, the ancient walls about 
the city of Canton began to disappear to make 
way for a modern trolley line. Steamboats will 
take the place of tread boats on the rivers and the 
wheel barrows will soon be relics of the past. 

A recent message from a missionary says: 
*The soldiers joined by the common people vis- 
ited every temple and nunnery they could find. 
Idols were taken down and stored in a building 
to be destroyed later. The priests and nuns have 
had no support from the people since the revolu- 
tion broke out.'' 

The situation in China reminds one of the man 
out of whom the unclean spirit had gone, de- 
scribed in Matt. 12: 43-45. China is being swept 
and garnished, but unless filled and controlled by 
the Word and Spirit of God there will be a 

45 



The Call of China and the Islands 

pagan reaction, and seven other spirits more 
wicked may enter, and the last state be worse 
than the first. 

Christianity has not faced such a challenge and 
opportunity since Pentecost. To have a share 
in the work of presenting Jesus Christ, the 
world's Redeemer, to China at this time, and of 
laying the foundations of the kingdom of God 
for the new republic, is an unspeakable privilege. 



46 



IL 

When our ship cast anchor at Yokohama, 
Japan, November 3, at three a.m., the stars and 
moon were shining with unusual brilliancy. It 
was an ideal morning. The passengers were 
soon astir, anxious to catch their first glimpse of 
Japan and be ready to go ashore early. 

Excitement and expectancy ran high. The 
view just before daybreak was magnificent. The 
world-famous Mount Fuji, covered on all sides 
with a heavy cap of snow, stood out in majesty 
before us, just back of the city of Yokohama. 
This solitary extinct volcanic peak rises 12,000 
feet above sea level and was thirty miles west 
of us, but seemed to be only five miles away. 
The rays of .the morning sun are first seen on 
the top of the snow-clad mountain, and give it a 
most beautiful red tinge. Breakfast was called 
early, and after a hasty examination by Japanese 
custom officers and a physician, we saw steam 
launches and all kinds of Japanese row-boats 
coming out to our ship. We w^ere soon taken 
ashore and found ourselves in the midst of the 
old and new of this land of wonderful beauty 
and variety. We saw the jinrikisha and the ox- 
cart on the same street and at the same time with 
the modern street car and automobile. 

47 



The Call of China and the Islands 

The Japanese people are no less interesting 
than their country. They are most active and 
aggressive and have wonderful power of initia- 
tive. They are indeed leading the Orient. 

Fifty years ago they cut loose from the policy 
of isolation and launched into the world's work 
with other nations, and they have since been 
reckoned with as a strong factor in commerce, 
in education, and in military strength. 

The population of Japan fifty years ago was 
thirty milHons. It is now fifty-one millions, and 
is still increasing rapidly. Her people cannot gain 
a livelihood by opening up new agricultural dis- 
tricts, for only from twelve to fourteen per cent, 
of the entire area of Japan is susceptible of cul- 
tivation. So the Japanese have been forced to 
enter upon a period of industrial and commercial 
activity. New industries are being fostered in 
many places, and a most aggressive commercial 
policy has been adopted. Already Japanese 
freight and passenger steamships dominate the 
Orient, and their lines run out to Australia, South 
Africa, and South America, as well as to India, 
Great Britain, and the United States. 

Japan has caught a vision of her possibilities 
in commerce; she has discovered her intellectual 
ability, as her splendid schools testify; she has 
become proud and ambitious on account of her 
military achievements; but the great discovery, 
namely, that Jesus Christ and his kingdom should 

48 




The New Emperor of Japan. 
Kmperor Yoshihito has officially announced "Taisho' 
"Great Righteousness" as the motto of his reign. 



or- 




«> 

Xfi 

C 

a 



Progressive Japan 

be over all, and first of all, has not yet enriched 
the millions in Japan. 

Remarkable Changes 

It seems incredible that but fifty years ago 
notice boards were standing on the highways of 
Japan announcing that Christianity is a forbidden 
religion. Through the fatal blunder on the part 
of Roman Catholic missionaries three centuries 
ago, the Japanese government was led to believe 
that they were seeking to get control of the state. 

Accordingly, in 1614, an edict was issued 
that all members of religious orders, whether 
Europeans or Japanese, should be sent out of the 
country. The persecutions of Christians that 
followed were most horrible. Some were hurled 
from the top of precipices, others buried alive, 
some were torn asunder by oxen, others tied up 
in rice bags and heaped together and the pile 
thus formed set on fire, others were tortured be- 
fore death by the insertion of sharp spikes under 
the nails of their hands and feet, and thus by this 
cruel and unrelenting persecution, within a few 
years all visible traces of Christianity were 
stamped out. The rank and file in Japan even 
to-day hold secret misgivings concerning the real 
purpose of Christianity. 

But a wonderful change is coming. Religious 
liberty has been written in the constitution of the 
nation, and the Bible, which fifty years ago was 
an unknown book, is now printed by two strong 

49 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Bible societies and scattered far and wide by all 
the missionary agencies. 

During my visit in Japan, the fiftieth anniver- 
sary of Dr. John H. Ballagh's work as a mission- 
ary was celebrated in a most impressive manner. 
The occasion brought out the oldest men in mis- 
sionary work and the strongest leaders in the 
Protestant churches in Japan, both Japanese and 
foreign missionaries. Doctor Ballagh is the first 
missionary to pass fifty years of service in Japan. 
This unique occasion took us across almost the 
entire period of missionary activity, and im- 
pressed one strongly with the growth and present 
strength of Protestant Christianity in the country. 
Fifty years ago there was not a Protestant Chris- 
tian in Japan, while to-day they are found in 
every walk of life, — members of parliament, 
judges, professors in universities, editors, and 
officers in the army. 

Doctor Ballagh had been in Japan ten years 
before the first Protestant Church was organized, 
March 10, 1872, with eleven members. There 
are now over six hundred organized churches and 
nearly a thousand other churches not yet fully 
organized. There are sixteen hundred Sunday 
schools with ninety-five thousand teachers and 
pupils, and the native churches contributed last 
year for their own support about one hundred 
and forty thousand dollars. The growth in the 
church membership has been as follows: In 
1872, 11; 1882, 4,361; 1900, 42,461; and at the 

50 



Progressive Japan 

present time, 80,000 are enrolled in Japanese 
Protestant churches. 

But the power of Christianity is far greater 
than these figures would indicate. There are no 
mass movements in Japan such as are found in 
India. Because of the solidarity of the Japanese 
nation and the handicap put on Christian educa- 
tion by the government in the past, every inch 
of advance had to be made by winning individ- 
uals one at a time away from prejudice and su- 
perstition. Hence, the victories achieved repre- 
sent vastly more in the way of sacrifice and 
power on the part of the Christian church than 
the same figures would show in some other field. 

Christianity Recognized 

Not only Christian statesmen, but other think- 
ing men are convinced that Japan must have a 
different basis for her spiritual and moral life. 
The prevalence of immorality has become alarm- 
ing to the leaders. Baron Makino, their Min- 
ister of Education, says, "We are greatly dis- 
tressed about the moral condition of the students 
and the low character of the ordinary lodging 
houses in Japan." 

Recently many of the leaders in Japan came 
together in council about this matter, and decided 
to call together representatives of the various 
religious sects and counsel with them on this sub- 
ject. This conference was held on February 25, 
1912, and was composed of representatives from 

51 



The Call of China and the Isknds 

the Christians, the Buddhists, and the Shintoists. 
This was the first time in the history of Japan 
when she actually recognized Protestant Chris- 
tianity by inviting its representatives to confer 
with the government on moral questions. This 
conference has produced a profound and opti- 
mistic impression in favor of Christianity. In 
certain cities in Japan, government officials 
have, since this conference, attended Protestant 
churches in a body, because they now regard the 
action of the government as a public recognition 
of the. power of Christianity. 

In harmony with this search for a solid basis 
of morality, the new emperor of Japan, Yoshi- 
hito, has recently issued a decree of great signifi- 
cance. It is customary in Japan for each reign 
to have a special designation. The reign which 
closed on July 30, 1912, with the death of Em- 
peror Mutsuhito, was very appropriately known 
as the period of '^Meiji" or ^'Enlightenment," for 
it was during his reign of forty-four years that 
Japan has made such wonderful progress. The 
new Emperor Yoshihito has taken an important 
step forward by officially designating the present 
reign as an era of ''Taisho" or "Great Righteous- 
ness.'' The emperor himself is an intelligent 
man of high moral character and the first Japan- 
ese ruler to be a monogamist. Christians every- 
where will pray for the Japanese people and their 
emperor in their search for righteousness that 
they may stand not on their own righteousness, 

52 



Progressive Japan 

but discover and abide in the righteousness of 
God in Christ Jesus as the only sure foundation 
for individual purity and national greatness. 

Our Own Workers 

I found the work of our missionaries and Jap- 
anese pastors of such a splendid character as to 
commend it most favorably to the other Christian 
forces in the Empire. Doctor Howard has been 
a member of the Executive Committee of the 
National Sunday-School Association. He has 
acted also as chairman of the Conference of 
Federated Missions for the Empire, and recently 
served as a member of the committee to investi- 
gate and report on unoccupied fields in Japan. 

Rev. Joseph Cosand, who is now acting as 
treasurer of the mission, has the confidence and 
esteem of all the Christian workers, and has had 
charge of the building of the new churches 
erected the past year at Harajuku and Shimo 
Shibuya. 

Rev. B. F. Shively has won a large place in 
the confidence and esteem of the professors and 
students of the Doshisha University. He is now 
in America in preparation for larger service. 

The wives of our missionaries in Japan bear 
their share of responsibility for the work. 
Through personal interviews, through Bible 
classes and cooking classes, as well as through 
the power of their Christian homes, they are ex- 
erting a great influence for the kingdom of God. 

53 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Our Japanese pastors take a prominent part 
in the national and city conventions among the 
Japanese churches, and they have proved them- 
selves to be most efficient, loyal leaders of their 
local churches. They receive on an average a 
salary of nineteen dollars per month. 

The spirit that is taking hold of the Japanese 
pastors is shown by the remarks of Rev. Mr, 
Ishiguro. I asked him for a message from the 
Bible that would express his supreme purpose. 
He replied, ''Watch thou in all things, endure 
afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make 
full proof of thy ministry.'* Then he went on 
to say: "My ambition is not for a high position 
as bishop, or president of some school. My one 
desire is to be like Paul, to preach the gospel, to 
establish Christian churches in many places, and 
to build up strong self-supporting churches soon. 
That is my purpose. Now, won't you pray for 
me, and please ask my friends in America to 
pray also that Christ may give me power to do 
this?" 

Earnest Christian Laymen 

I had the privilege of meeting and counseling 
with many earnest Christian laymen while in 
Japan — men who have been won to Christ 
through the labors of our missionaries and Jap- 
anese pastors. These are working with their 
pastors and the missionaries with conviction and 
loyalty. The story of the work of one of them, 
Mr. Toda, will illustrate what others are doing. 

54 



Progressive Japan 

About ten years ago Mr. Toda was a guard in 
the Kyoto prison. He was anxious to get a 
better position and thought that by learning Eng- 
lish he might become a school-teacher. He heard 
of an English Bible class conducted by our United 
Brethren Church, and he came to it for the pur- 
pose of learning English, but in the course of a 
few months the gospel message gripped his heart 
and he became a Christian. Soon after uniting 
with the church he was anxious that his family 
and neighbors also might become Christians. So 
he requested Brother Ishiguro to conduct gospel 
meetings in his own home. Largely through the 
efforts of this layman and the testimony of his 
earnest Christian life our Second United Breth- 
ren Church in Kyoto was organized. 

About two years ago Mr. Toda and family 
moved from Kyoto to Osaka, the largest commer- 
cial center of all Japan, and in which city we 
had no mission at that time. Mr. Toda at once 
requested that our Church begin missionary work 
in a district of one hundred thousand people in 
that great city. Rev. Mr. Ishiguro became inter- 
ested and visited the place. Ninety dollars were 
spent in fixing up a private house for public wor- 
ship, and when T visited this thriving mission I 
found these earnest workers had won seventy-five 
wide-awake persons to Jesus Christ and had a 
splendid church organized. The spirit of evan- 
gelism and aggressive work was manifestly pres- 
ent. 

55 



The Call of China and the Islands 

They urged that our Foreign Mission Board 
secure for them a lot and said that they them- 
selves would build the church house. Such 
rapid progress as this does not seem remarkable 
in America, but in Japan where heathen shrines, 
temples, and images abound, and the very atmos- 
phere is saturated with pagan ideas, the growth 
of this mission church in Osaka is clear evidence 
of the wonder-working power of God. It illus- 
trates also what one earnest Christian layman 
like Mr. Toda can accomplish for God in a great 
city. 

Encouraging Growth 

The last year in our mission in Japan there 
were added, on an average^ seventeen members 
for each Japanese pastor. The growth in the 
Methodist and Presbyterian churches shows an 
average increase of but six members for each 
Japanese pastor, while for the Congregational 
churches the average for each one was nineteen. 
Our membership increased from five hundred 
and eighty-nine to seven hundred and thirty- 
three, or a gain of tw^enty-four per cent, during 
the last twelve months. Of our seventeen Jap- 
anese workers, eleven are ordained men. We 
have seventeen organized churches and eight 
other regular preaching places, six chapels and 
church buildings, seven Christian Endeavor socie- 
ties, and nineteen Sunday schools with an enroll- 
ment of one thousand one hundred and thirteen. 

56 



Progressive Japan 

The total value of our property is $47,634, and 
the amount contributed on the field last year 
toward self-support was $1,472. 

A Tour of Inspection 

We visited personally our mission work at 
Nihombashi, Honjo, Harajuku, Shimo Shibuya, 
Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, and Shizuoka; held 
preaching services at each place and had the joy 
of seeing a number of decisions for Christ. 
These visitations revealed the fact that our seven- 
teen preaching places are supplying the only priv- 
ileges of the gospel to districts, as follows : 
I. Places already equipped with buildings. 

1. Kyoto, a city of 400,000, First U. B. 
Church; field to be evangelized, 20,000; a splen- 
did church building and parsonage for Japanese 
pastor, valued at $8,000; church aggressive; out- 
look for a strong church and self-support most 
hopeful. 

2. Shizuoka, a splendid city. Our district, 
10,000; we have a suitable church lot, building, 
and parsonage provided; value of same, $1,750. 

3. Harajuku, where we have a most up-to- 
date new church building and parsonage, valued 
at $9,500; a great open door for a mighty work 
in evangelism and the training of students for 
the ministr}^ 

4. Shimo Shibuya, adjacent to our missionary 
residences; district, 10,000; a neat church build- 
ing has been erected on our own lot; value of 

57 



The Call of China and the Islands 

lot and building, $3,800 ; an excellent opportunity 
for kindergarten and evangelistic work. 
II. Places greatly needing equipment. 

1. Kyoto, Second Church. District, 18,000; 
church in a rented house; present need, $4,000 
for a lot ; $2,500 for a church building. 

2. Osaka, a city of 1,200,000; our district, 
100,000; church in rented house; present urgent 
need, a church lot, $5,000. The aggressive con- 
gregation and pastor declare they will erect the 
church building themselves if the mission pro- 
vides the lot. 

3. Nagoya, a large city; our district, 20,000; 
greatly need a church lot, $5,000, and a church 
building, $2,500. 

4. Numazu. Our district, 5,000; the present 
needs, $750 for a lot and $1,500 for a church 
building. 

5. Odawara. Our district, 6,000; present 
needs, $750 for a lot, $1,500 for a church build- 
ing. 

6. Honjo, a section of Tokyo, 30,000 popula- 
tion; a live church at work; needs a lot, $1,000, 
and church building, $3,500. 

7. Okubo. Our field, 15,000; present need, 
$1,500 for a lot and $2,500 for a church building. 

8. Otsu, in the center of a district of 100,000, 
all of which should be assumed by our Church 
at this time; present need for a lot, $1,500, for a 
church building, $1,500. 

58 



Progressive Japan 

9. In Funabashi, Matsudo, and Noda we 
have a good start in missionary work ; population 
of districts, respectively, 20,000, 10,000, and 
15,000; new church buildings and lots should 
be provided soon. Total cost for these, $6,750. 

10. Nihombashi, a district of Tokyo, which 
has a population of 151,873, and in this district 
there are but three chapels with a total seating 
capacity of about 400. Our distinct field has a 
population of 40,000. Being in the very heart 
of the capital of the Empire, the lot and church 
building will cost $12,500. This is a most press- 
ing and important need. 

An Unreaped Harvest 

During the last two years the missionary lead- 
ers in Japan have made thorough-going investi- 
gations to find out the exact religious condition 
of the Empire. The results announced are the 
greatest challenge that has ever come from 
Japan. 

Of the fifty-one million people in the Empire 
it is found that thirty-five millions are living in 
towns of twenty thousand and less, and in coun- 
try places. These towns and country places have 
been practically untouched as yet with gospel 
messengers. In other words, there are now in 
Japan more people without gospel privileges than 
are found in the entire population of the United 
States west of the Mississippi River. This re- 
ligious census revealed also the fact that even in 

5P 



The Call of China and the Islands 

great cities where missionary work has been 
started the need is appalHng. 

In the six provinces around Tokyo there is but 
one Christian to every 620 non-Christians; one 
Japanese pastor to every 38,310 persons, and one 
evangeHstic missionary to 88,263 persons. 

In the district of Tokyo there is but one evan- 
geHstic missionary for every 123,000, and one 
Japanese pastor to 50,000 of the people. The 
facilities in the way of chapels and churches are 
wholly inadequate. As the result of this inves- 
tigation a call has been sent to America for a 
greatly increased number of evangelistic mission- 
aries who shall take charge of these neglected 
districts. 

An interdenominational committee, which has 
charge of the distribution of Christian forces, 
has asked the United Brethren Mission to evan- 
gelize Chiba Ken, a district just northwest of 
Tokyo, in which there are fourteen towns and 
thirty-eight villages with a total population of 
210,115. We already have preaching services 
in three of the largest towns, Funabashi, Mat- 
sudo, and Noda. Here is a large, compact field, 
immediately adjacent to our present work, which 
will afford a first-class opportunity for a strong 
evangelistic missionary to do telling work for 
God during the next twenty-five years. 

Another district assigned us is Shiga Ken, of 
which Otsu is the capital. In this province, 
which is situated just east of Kyoto, there is a 

.60 



Progressive Japan 

population of 691,000. At least 100,000 people 
of this neglected field should be taken by us. In 
this district there are 150 unoccupied towns, each 
with a population of from two thousand to four 
thousand. In the center of this place, Rev. 
Monroe Crecelius laid down his life some years 
ago. What is needed is a missionary who will 
take up the work of this fallen hero, and go 
among the towns and villages organizing and 
developing mission circuits. 

At our Harrisburg Board meeting it was unan- 
imously voted that our denomination accept the 
foregoing named districts as ours to evangelize, 
and that two missionary families be secured as 
soon as possible to occupy these fields. 

A Mighty Task 

When one considers the fact that in Japan 
there is practically no Sabbath, that the chief 
currents of social and political life are anti- 
Christian, that there has been a distinct revival 
of Buddhism and ancestral worship, and that 
five-sevenths of the entire population are in dis- 
tricts destitute of gospel privileges, the magni- 
tude of the task that is before the Christian forces 
appears stupendous. 

It is at once apparent that unity of forces is 
absolutely essential in order that the best possi- 
ble results may be secured from the lives and 
money invested for the evangelization of this 
Empire. Accordingly, four strong groups of 

61 



The Call of China and the Islands 

churches have already been formed. These in- 
clude the Kumiai, with which the Congregational 
Mission is cooperating; the Church of Christ, 
with which the Presbyterians, the German Re- 
formed, and the Dutch Reformed Missions are 
cooperating; the United Methodist Japanese 
Church, with which the Methodist Episcopal, 
Methodist Church of Canada, and Methodist 
Church South are cooperating; and the Japanese 
Episcopal Church, with which six societies in 
Great Britain and Canada and the United States 
are cooperating. 

These four Japanese communions or churches 
have enrolled at least eighty per cent, of the 
entire Protestant church membership in Japan. 
Their general plan of organization and work is 
as follows: The self-supporting churches of 
each of these groups of missions were united into 
a Japanese Church, the chief responsibility being 
put into the hands of the Japanese pastors and 
laymen. A home missionary society has been 
organized by each Japanese communion thus con- 
stituted, for extending its work in Japan, but as 
only a small part of the task already begun in 
the several missions could be supported by these 
Japanese churches, the several missions have 
agreed among themselves to be responsible for 
a certain amount of the home missionary work 
already begun, and for the starting of work in 
some of the new places to be entered. Thus each 
mission is taking hold of many weak churches 

62 



Progressive Japan 

and new places, and developing them into self- 
supporting local churches, and then turning them 
over to the Japanese communion with which it is 
cooperating. 

In working out this plan there has been much 
thought and energ}^ given to it by both the mis- 
sionaries and the Japanese pastors. The results 
achieved will be a great contribution toward a 
satisfactory solution of the problem of an aggres- 
sive, united native church in all the mission fields 
of the world. 

After carefully studying the problem of co- 
operation on the field, it was the combined judg- 
ment of the missionaries and the secretary that 
in order to give the Japanese pastors the largest 
fellowship, inspiration, and responsibility for the 
evangelization of their own country, our mission 
with others not yet cooperating with one of the 
four mentioned groups of Japanese churches, 
should seek to do so; or by committee or other- 
wise join with others in an efifort to bring these 
four groups of Japanese churches together with 
all other Christian churches, into one well-organ- 
ized, aggressive Japanese church, so as to bring 
the combined impact of Christianity to bear upon 
the superhuman problems before the Christian 
church in Japan. 

Co-operation in Educational Work 

In addition to the closer federation of the Jap- 
anese churches, the outstanding need in Japan is 

63 



The Call of China and the Islands 

for a Christian university. Dr. D. B. Schneder, 
the president of the Conference of Federated 
Missions in Japan, recently voiced this need, as 
follows: '*If Christianity is to fulfill its mission 
in Japan, it needs, first of all, preachers of the 
gospel who are thoroughly educated in first-class, 
vigorous Christian institutions of learning. A 
university is the great need of the hour in Chris- 
tian education in Japan, and to bring this widely- 
cherished dream into reality, one strong, united, 
undaunted effort should by all means be made at 
this point in the history of Christian work in 
Japan." 

While I was in Japan, definite steps were taken 
by the trustees of the Doshisha College to meet 
this expressed need, by extending its courses so 
as to become a Christian university. The gov- 
ernment has already approved this action and the 
Doshisha now enters upon a career of marvelous 
opportunity. The alumni and friends of the in- 
stitution in Japan are rallying to its support. 

Our Church has been cooperating with this 
school for more than ten years, first by sending 
Rev. J. Edgar Knipp and later Rev. B. F. Shively 
to teach in it. The authorities have recently 
asked that Rev. B. F. Shively take the chair of 
Religious Pedagogy in the Theological Depart- 
ment, and that our Church support a Japanese 
professor also, who shall be a specialist in the 
Old Testament. 

64 




Bird's-Eye View of the Doshisha, Kyoto. 





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Intermediate Boys and Girls, Honjo U. B. Sunday School, 

Tokyo. 




o 

o 
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pq 



X 



Progressive Japan 

Some of the most able Japanese pastors, like 
Mr. Ishiguro, have received their training in the 
Doshisha. We now have three students there in 
preparation for the ministry. Our superintend- 
ent, Doctor Howard, says: ''If we had no con- 
nection with a school of this sort, it would cost 
us far more to run a training school of our own, 
and even at the greater expense our men could 
not get the inspiration and preparation they re- 
ceive in this great university/' While non- 
Christians may contribute to the support of the 
secular department of the Doshisha, they cannot 
be counted on to support the theological depart- 
ment. Christian men and churches and missions 
must bear this responsibility. 

The Present Challenge 

The urgency of helping Japan to-day was 
summed up at the World's Missionary Confer- 
ence in Edinburgh, as follows: ''What is done 
for Japan is done for the whole Orient. What we 
do for her we must do quickly, or too late mourn 
our short-sightedness. We would not be alarm- 
ists, but the facts are disquieting. The educated 
portion of the population is already largely nat- 
uralistic and agnostic. Few educators have any 
use for religion at all. Hence there is a process 
going on, which, if unchecked, will make it very 
difficult for the gospel to find entrance. Mean- 
while also the transition stage will pass, and the 
country will settle down to more fixed modes of 

65 



The Call of China and the Islands 

thought. It is, therefore, necessary to act quickly 
and give Japan, without delay, all she needs in 
the way of missionaries and educational institu- 
tions." 

God's present call to our own Church is to 
take the following advance steps : 

1. Send out two additional missionaries to 
occupy the two needy districts, Chiba Ken and 
Shiga Ken, with their 300,000 people, which we 
have accepted as ours to evangelize. 

2. Support a Japanese professor in the theo- 
logical department of the Doshisha. These two 
advance steps will require an annual increase in 
the current expenses of the mission of $3,100. 

3. Provide $54,250 within five years for lots, 
new buildings, and equipment already mentioned 
in detail in this report. 

4. Purchase at once a lot and erect a church 
building in the central district of Tokyo, for our 
Nihombashi Church, where forty thousand people 
look to us for the gospel. This lot and church 
will cost $12,500. 

At the recent meeting of the Foreign Mission- 
ary Society, at Harrisburg, Pa., the foregoing 
needs for Japan were thoroughly considered and 
the Board, by unanimous vote, approved the 
same, and recommended that our denomination 
make these advances at the earliest possible 
moment. 

In conclusion, I may say that one cannot but 
admire the Japanese people because of their cour- 

66 



Progressive Japan 

tesy, their ambition, and their aggressiveness. 
What a contribution will come to the Church of 
Christ when the millions of Japan see him as 
their life and their Lord, and yield their splendid 
talents to make his kingdom universal ! It is 
well worth while to win such a people to Jesus 
Christ, and turn their activities into channels for 
the uplift of the world. 



(n 



III. 

We witnessed a most striking contrast in going 
from China to the PhiHppines. In Canton, with 
its population of two milHon, there were no street 
cars, no automobiles, and no horses on her eight- 
foot-wide congested streets, and no stable gov- 
ernment to insure protection of life and prop- 
erty. We found Manila changed from an anti- 
quated, mosquito-infested, mediaeval town to a 
modern city, with beautiful parks and boulevards 
and hundreds of automobiles, buggies, and street 
cars, and over all. Old Glory pledging liberty, 
opportunity, and protection. 

A Strategic Stroke 

Not by mere chance were the Stars and Stripes 
placed over the Philippine Islands fourteen years 
ago. That was one of God's orderly movements. 
When the children of Israel were greatly op- 
pressed in Egypt, God saw it and sent Moses to 
deliver them. So, in 1898, the hour had arrived 
for God to deliver eight million oppressed Fili- 
pinos, and he called the United States to do it. 
One hundred years hence the world will have a 
better idea of the great purpose God had for the 
entire Orient when he called the United States 
to take hold of the Philippines. The Strait 
Settlements, China, and Japan are finding in the 
Philippines a powerful object lesson. President 

68 



The Advancing Philippines 

McKinley's own statement reads like a paragraph 
from the Bible. He said : 

"When I discovered that the Philippines had 
fallen into our lap, I confess I did not know what 
to do with them. I sought counsel from all sides, 
but got little help. I walked the floor of the 
White House night after night till after mid- 
night, and I am not ashamed to tell that I went 
down on my knees and prayed God for light and 
guidance more than one night. Well, it came to 
me this way. (1) That we could not give these 
islands back to Spain; that would be cowardly 
and dishonorable. (2) We could not leave them 
to themselves, or they would soon have misrule 
and anarchy. (3) There was nothing left for 
us to do but to take them all, to educate and up- 
lift them, to civilize and Christianize them, and 
by God's grace do the very best we could for 
them as our fellow-men for whom Christ also 
died. And then I went to bed and to sleep, and 
slept soundly; and the next morning I sent for 
the chief engineer of the War Department, who 
is our map-maker, and said. Tut the Philippine 
Islands on the map of the United States.' " And, 
pointing to a large wall map, he said, "And there 
they are and shall remain as long as I am 
President." 

Lifting the Philippines Godward 

The work accomplished by the American mis- 
sionary and the American Government for the 

69 



The Call of China and the Islands 

uplift of the Philippines fills the heart with en- 
thusiastic praises. On the one side, the Govern- 
ment has been building roads, introducing sani- 
tary conditions, developing a stable, representa- 
tive government, and establishing one of the best 
school systems on earth, which gives special 
emphasis to manual and industrial training. On 
the other hand, the American missionary has been 
helping by translating the Bible into the lan- 
guages of the people, by organizing Sunday 
schools, winning converts to Jesus Christ, and by 
establishing churches and Christian educational 
institutions. 

Things are moving at a rapid pace in the Phil- 
ippines. Think of it! Fourteen years ago, only 
five thousand boys and girls were given any sort 
of school privileges in the Philippines. To-day 
there are six hundred and ten thousand in the 
public schools. 

During the last ten years the missionaries have 
mastered the various languages, adapted them- 
selves to primitive conditions and great hardships 
in opening up the country, and have won to 
Christ fifty-two thousand four hundred converts, 
who are now being trained to do all kinds of 
Christian work. 

One of the missionary assets now found in the 
Philippines is a band of true and tried mission- 
ary statesmen — men and women who have sur- 
vived the change in climate and the test of mas- 
tering a new language and of adapting themselves 

70 



The Advancing Philippines 

to strange conditions. These missionaries are 
now able leaders who will direct wisely the ad- 
vances of the next decade. 

United Brethren Activities 

We found our own mission work in first-class 
condition. Missionaries of other communions 
congratulated us on having what they considered 
the best type of intensive organization and work 
among the native local churches found anywhere. 
All the missionaries in the Philippines are full of 
enthusiasm similar to that found in Korea. Each 
one of our own workers has a definite task to do, 
but each is ready to supplement or take up the 
work of another when necessary. 

Rev. S. B. Kurtz who, with his wife and family 
is now in this country on furlough, was the ex- 
pert treasurer of our Philippine Mission. Dur- 
ing the year before his return to the States, he 
represented our Church as a professor on the 
faculty of the Union Bible Seminary in Manila, 
in which institution the Presbyterians, Metho- 
dists, and United Brethren are cooperating to 
give the young men of these missions the best 
possible preparation for the ministry. 

This seminary holds its session each year from 
June to December, which is the rainy season, 
when both the missionary professors and the 
students can best be spared from the work at 
their stations. From December to June the 
weather is ideal for evangelistic work and district 

71 



The Call of China and the Islands 

institutes, and during these months the students 
and professors, fresh from the seminary, go 
forth to put into practice what they have been 
acquiring during the six months in school. 

Last year our mission had six students in this 
Union Seminary, and they took two or three 
prizes offered for high-grade work. This year 
our Church has eight students in attendance. 

Rev. E. J. Pace, who during his recent fur- 
lough in the States took some special training 
for a professorship in this Union School, is now 
back in the PhiHppines enthusiastically at work. 
In addition to his teaching, he is devoting much 
thought and time to reaching the Ilocanos in 
Manila, among whom we recently organized a 
church. 

Miss Matilda Weber has been busy starting 
and developing the Deaconess Training School 
at San Fernando, and assisting in district insti- 
tutes. Her work has been highly satisfactory. 
Eighteen students pursued the first year's course 
of the deaconess school the past twelve months, 
and the demand for and importance of this kind 
of work call for a larger building and another 
lady missionary. 

Rev. M. W. Mumma has charge of the station 
at San Fernando, and is editor and publisher of 
our excellent weekly mission paper, the "Naim- 
bag a Damag'' (Good News). This paper, which 
was enlarged from six to twelve pages last year, 
has increased its circulation the last twelve 

n 



The Advancing Philippines 

months from two thousand three hundred and 
fifty to over four thousand. It is conceded by 
missionaries of other churches that this paper 
has the largest circulation of any religious period- 
ical in the vernacular, not only in the Philippines, 
but in the Orient. Through this paper, Rev, Mr. 
Mumma reaches every week at least ten thousand 
interested readers, the great majority of whom 
have no other Christian reading matter whatso- 
ever. Many have been led to Christ through the 
reading of this paper. The subscription price is 
fifty cents per year. It is now almost self- 
supporting. 

In addition to the excellent mission paper, our 
press at San Fernando is sending forth many 
religious tracts, various forms of Sunday-school 
helps, and small booklets, literature of the very 
greatest importance for the Sunday schools and 
the native church membership. When one sees 
the great open door in the coast and mountain 
provinces for the preaching of the gospel by 
means of the printed page, he can understand 
why Mr. Mumma is bubbling over with enthu- 
siasm concerning his work. 

Mrs. Mumma also has such intimate knowl- 
edge of the mission press work as to be able to 
carry it along in addition to her other duties 
when her husband is called away on work out of 
town. 

Rev. H. W. Widdoes has done high-grade 
work as superintendent. He puts himself right 

73 



The Call of China and the Islands 

into the midst of the fight at the front and creates 
unbounded enthusiasm on the part of his co- 
workers. 

Seeing Actual Work 

Dr. A. T. Howard and the writer accompanied 
the superintendent and Rev. John Abellera on an 
extensive tour of quarterly meetings, visiting our 
chief mission stations. These tours were a reve- 
lation of the great extent of our mission fields 
and the hardships our workers have to endure. 
We journeyed ninety-two miles during one tour, 
on ox-carts, carromatas, and then putting aside 
our vehicles, we saddled the horses and rode 
them up the mountain streams. We crossed 
rivers on bamboo rafts nine times. During the 
rainy season, when as much as seventy-eight 
inches of water falls in four days, these rivers 
become torrents from a mile to three miles wide. 

Having held three meetings one day, we came 
to the last ^'river for to cross" after eleven o'clock 
at night, just as the moon was disappearing in the 
west and darkness prevented us from seeing any- 
thing across the river. Contrary to arrangement, 
the raftsman had gone to bed, on the side of the 
river opposite from us, and we had to wake him 
or stay all night on the south bank. One after 
another began to call, but no response. After 
fifteen minutes of vain endeavor, all came close 
together like a group of students giving their 
college yell, and we focalized and greatly inten- 

74 



The Advancing Philippines 

sified our call: "Bal-cero! Bal-cero! Hoy Bal- 
ce-ro — Raftsman! Ho! Raftsman!" Soon 
the dogs in the darkness across the river began 
to bark, and later the raftsman signaled that he 
was on the way ; but when the raft finally arrived, 
it was so small our party had to be taken across 
on the installment plan, each trip requiring about 
half an hour. We arrived at our destination 
just one hour after midnight and found sleep 
most refreshing. 

When not stopping with the missionaries on 
this trip, the boards on the floor were the beds 
for the entire party save one, for whom an army 
stretcher had been secured. Boiled water for 
drinking purposes had to be taken along in 
bottles from day to day. To reach the goal fixed 
for certain days, it was necessary to be on the 
march before the rising sun had put out the 
stars, and so we had the great inspiration of see- 
ing the Southern Cross in the tropical heavens, 
and just where seen to the best advantage when 
one is in the midst of the mountains. 

The preaching services and evangelistic meet- 
ings held on this tour were largely attended. Of 
chief interest to the writer, however, were the 
quarterly business meetings. 

Work Well Organized 

Our superintendent showed marked abiHty in 
the way these quarterly meetings were conducted. 
Written reports were submitted by each pastor, 

75 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Sunday-school superintendent, steward, class 
leader, and lay preacher. These often called out 
helpful discussions. 

I was especially interested in the reports of 
the lay preachers, who do their work without 
remuneration. One reported twenty-five Bible 
classes, twenty addresses, and one hundred and 
sixty-eight personal interviews with men during 
the quarter, seeking to lead them to Christ. Five 
young men were examined and licensed to do 
similar work. Thus the good news is spreading 
from the coast towns into the immense mountain 
province, just east and north of our work, where 
five hundred thousand persons are still without 
the gospel. 

While Rev. Mr. Widdoes has been making 
such extensive tours as here described, Mrs. 
Widdoes and their five enthusiastic children have 
had to live alone in their home in Tagudin, sepa- 
rated some twenty-five miles from other mission- 
aries. Their interest in the work is so intense 
that they do not think this is a hardship. 
Professor Camilo Osias 

The first day out on this tour of inspection, just 
described, our party took dinner with Professor 
Osias, at Bacnotan, a town nine miles north of 
San Fernando. While attending the high school 
at San Fernando he became a member of the first 
Bible class conducted by our missionaries at that 
place. Through the study of the Word of God 
he was led to Jesus Christ, and he united with 

76 



The Advancing Philippines 

our Church in San Fernando on Christmas, 1904. 
He was thus one of the first fruits of our mis- 
sion in the PhiHppines. 

Mr. Osias made rapid progress in school, and 
in the spring of 1905 he won, in a competitive 
examination, a United States scholarship offered 
by the government. On coming to the States 
he attended the McComb Normal School in Illi- 
nois, spending his summers at Chicago Univer- 
sity. While at McComb he won the interstate 
oratorical contest. He then went to Columbia 
University, from which he graduated in 1910. 
On returning to the Philippines, Professor Osias 
was appointed superintendent of schools of the 
district of Bacontan, where there are forty teach- 
ers and one thousand eight hundred pupils. I 
learned from other leading educators that Pro- 
fessor Osias is regarded as one of the most pro- 
gressive teachers in the Islands. 

Since returning to the Philippines, he has iden- 
tified himself actively with our mission work, and 
is sought after in many places to make important 
religious addresses. In addition to his other 
work, Professor Osias has been contributing 
strong articles for the religious press. 

If the United Brethren Mission had accom- 
plished nothing more in the Philippines than the 
conversion of this noble Christian leader all the 
lives and money we have put into this work 
would be well spent. 



The Call of China and the Islands 

A Trip to Annual Conference 
The Philippine Annual Conference was held 
at Tubao, February 15-18. We had a varied 
experience journeying from San Fernando to the 
place of the annual conference, a distance of 
twenty-seven miles. At eight o'clock, on Thurs- 
day morning, February 15, a large covered 
wagon, drawn by three mules and a horse, 
stopped at the mission house at San Fernando 
for its cargo, which consisted of Rev. and Mrs. 
Widdoes, their five children. Miss Weber, and a 
good supply of bread, canned butter, cut beef, 
and culinary articles. Mr. Mumma and the 
writer followed a half hour later, caught up with 
the first division at Bawang, seven miles south 
of San Fernando, where a preaching service was 
held at 9 : 30 a.m. 

Then we drove seven miles farther south to 
Cava, and at 1 1 : 00 a.m. laid the corner-stone 
of the new Otterbein Memorial Church. This 
church is named in honor of the Otterbein charge 
in East Ohio Conference, whose good people are 
giving one thousand dollars for its erection. The 
members of the Cava church were out in large 
numbers. They themselves are doing much to 
erect this cement block church. After appetiz- 
ing refreshments in the hospitable home of Rev. 
and Mrs. Abellera, we were off again for a three- 
mile drive to the northern terminus of the rail- 
road at Aringay. From there we journeyed 
by train to Agoo, five miles south, hoping at this 

78 



The Advancing Philippines 

place to find horses and carts ready to take us 
into the mountains to the place of the annual 
conference, but every horse had been engaged 
by the government officials for other purposes, 
and so we all had to put up for the night in the 
home of an American school-teacher, and get 
ready for a start by daylight the next morning. 
The five miles from Agoo to Tubao cannot be 
made by wagon or carriage, there being no cer- 
tain roadway, and so, some on foot, some on ox- 
cart, and others on horse-back, we crossed a river 
seventeen times and arrived at Tubao in time for 
the first business session of the conference. 

Remarkable Progress 

The sessions of the annual conference were 
held in a bamboo tabernacle covered with cocoa- 
nut leaves for a roof. The attendance was large 
and the reports uplifting. After deducting all 
losses for the year the communicant membership 
increased from one thousand five hundred and 
seventeen to one thousand seven hundred and 
ninety-two, or a net gain of eighteen per cent. 
The Sunday-school enrollment advanced from 
eight hundred and twenty-one to one thousand 
four hundred and eight, or a gain of seventy per 
cent, and the increase in self-support on the part 
of the native church was from ^333.37 to $686.68. 

Wonderful changes have taken place the last 
six years. The congregations have increased in 
that time from three to twenty-five, and the mem- 

79 



The Call of China and the Islands 

bership from one hundred and twenty-five to 
nearly two thousand at the present time. 

Three new churches were organized in import- 
ant places the past year, namely, in Manila, where 
there are ten thousand Ilocanos who look to us 
for the privileges of the gospel. This church, 
which started with nineteen members, will develop 
rapidly into what I believe will be one of the 
strongest local churches in the Philippines, for 
there are a great many wide-awake Ilocanos in 
Manila, as government clerks, stewards in 
hotels, and merchants. This church will furnish 
a field for active service on the part of our 
seminary students during the rainy season. 

A new church was organized at Baguio also 
this year. This is the summer capital. A new 
railroad is being constructed to this point and 
the population is destined to multiply rapidly. 
The third church organized was in Concepcion, a 
point far up in the Mountain Province — the 
farthest advance we have made in giving the 
gospel to the five hundred thousand of this ter- 
ritory, many of whom are half-savage and are 
destitute of gospel privileges. 

A Striking Conversion 

While attending the annual conference at 
Tubao, we were dined in a home in which a 
striking conversion had taken place some years 
ago. A public school teacher who had been led 
to Christ by our missionaries informed Mr. Wid- 

80 




On the Way to Annual Conference, Philippines. 




San Fernando U. B. Church. 




Professor Camilo Osias, 

A Filipino layman whose influence for Christ is far-reaching. 



The Advancing Philippines 

does that there was a man in this town by the 
name of Ambrosio Oribillo who would like to 
have a Bible. Two New Testaments were sent 
him at once. Some months later this man in- 
vited the missionary to visit him, and after a ride 
of thirty miles under the tropical sun, Mr. Wid- 
does came to this home for the first time. The 
man greeted him most cordially, saying: 'T am 
so glad you have come. I received the book you 
sent me and as soon as I received it I read it 
through without stopping.'' 

Mr. Widdoes was greatly surprised, and said, 
"How long did it take you ?'' 

''Two days and one night,'' was the reply. 
"Oh, it is a wonderful book," he continued, "but 
I found some difficulties which I cannot under- 
stand." 

And he presented the New Testament with 
the leaves turned down where there were difficul- 
ties and it seemed that one-half of the leaves 
were turned over. Then began a most earnest 
searching for the truth, which lasted until eleven 
o'clock at night, when Mr. Widdoes, from sheer 
fatigue on account of the day's journey and the 
taxing labor of explaining the Bible in a new 
tongue, fell asleep on the hard board floor. But 
the Ilocano school teacher, who was with them, 
took up the conversation with this earnest in- 
quirer, and there by the little smoky kerosene 
torch, they worked together during the rest of 
the night. In the morning, when Mr. Widdoes 

81 



The Call of China and the Islands 

awoke, they were still eagerly discussing the 
wonderful promises in the Bible. In a very 
short time this man was led to Christ. A church 
was soon organized in the town and this man be- 
came a pioneer in starting other churches farther 
up in the mountains. He secured seventy-five 
subscribers for our weekly religious paper and 
continued to be one of the most successful work- 
ers in our entire Filipino mission. 

After four years the dreaded Asiatic cholera 
made its appearance in Tubao and Ambrosio 
was one of the five who finished his course 
through this malady. He died triumphant in the 
faith, admonishing his wife to bring up their 
large family in the way of the gospel. 

The Next Forward Steps 

It was a real joy to talk over with the mission- 
aries their past achievements and to discuss their 
present problems and future needs. Most thor- 
ough investigations were made which led up to 
definite recommendations regarding new chapels 
and churches. 

Our Filipino workers are making advances 
along two lines : First, by organizing and devel- 
oping their local churches and seeking to build 
permanent church buildings ; second, by cultivat- 
ing the spirit of missionary extension in their 
conference so as to occupy the adjacent Moun- 
tain Province. 

82 



The Advancing Philippines 

Suitable chapels have already been erected in 
San Fernando, Balaoan, Tagudin, and Cava, and 
chapels are in progress of erection at Bawang 
and Tubao. 

The Mission Council in the Philippines most 
earnestly requests that our Foreign Mission 
Board grant them at least two thousand dollars 
each year for the next five years, to aid our 
Filipino brethren in the erection of chapels in the 
following towns in which ours is the only Pro- 
testant church, and in which at present we have 
but mere temporary shacks or dwelling houses in 
which to hold rehgious services: 

Agoo, with a population of 13,000; church 
membership. 111. San Juan, with a population 
of 12,000; church membership, 161. Bacnotan, 
with a population of 10,000 ; church membership, 
106. Naguilian, with a population of 11,000; 
church membership, 92. Aringay, with a popu- 
lation of 8,000; church membership, 11. Sto. 
Tomas, with a population of 4,000 ; church mem- 
bership, 40. Bangar, with a population of 9,000; 
church membership, 55. Cervantes, with a pop- 
ulation of 2,500, not yet organized. Luna, with 
a population of 11,000, not yet organized. 

This aid in every instance is to be granted only 
after the local church has done its best in pro- 
viding materials and labor. We cannot state in 
advance for which towns this help will first be 
needed, for that depends upon the action of the 

83 



The Call of China and the Islands 

local church. The total amount needed for these 
chapels is $10,000. 

In addition to the above, we should provide, as 
soon as possible, $10,000 for suitable lots and 
church buildings in the city of Manila and in 
Baguio. The total needed for new churches and 
chapels is $20,000. 

Other Equipment Needed 

1. An immediate need is ground to be added 
to the mission compound in San Fernando in 
order to provide a suitable site for the Dea- 
coness Training School, the hospital, the Evangel 
Press, and the dormitories. A very satisfactory 
property is under consideration, which lies adja- 
cent to our present mission property, and which 
could probably be purchased for $2,500. 

2. The Deaconess Training School has already 
outgrown its present quarters. Because of the 
very important relation it bears to the extension 
of the work among the women and children, a 
larger and more satisfactory building should be 
erected as soon as possible. It is estimated that 
this building will cost $5,000. 

3. Within a year after the arrival of the phy- 
sician, whom we so urgently need, it will be 
necessary to build a hospital. The people for the 
most part are too ignorant to obey the instructions 
of a physician, and accordingly all serious cases 
should necessarily be treated in a hospital in order 

84 



The Advancing Philippines 

to secure the best results. The estimated cost 
of this building with equipment is $5,000. 

4. Since our printing plant will soon need 
larger and more satisfactory quarters, it is recom- 
mended that within two years from this time a 
concrete building should be erected for this pur- 
pose at a probable cost of $2,500, and a cylinder 
press costing about $1,500 should be secured. In 
all probability this plant will be able to provide 
a portion of the funds needed for this latter pur- 
pose from its own income. 

5. Because w^e believe that dormitories or 
hostels for high-school students are very essen- 
tial, we expect to continue the work among the 
students on an increasingly large scale. If this 
work continues to develop as in the past, we shall 
need, within three years, one and possibly two 
dormitories for high-school students, the cost 
of which is estimated at $2,500 each. 

The estimated cost for all the above-mentioned 
buildings and equipment, other than chapels and 
churches, which should be provided just as soon 
as possible, is $19,000. 

Extension of Our Territory 

To the north and east of Union Province, in 
which we began our mission work, is the great 
territory known at present as Mountain Province, 
containing a population of five hundred thousand 
people, mostly pagans. This territory is divided 
into seven sub-provinces — Benguet, Amburayan, 

8S 



The Call of China and the Islands 

Lepanto, Ifugao, Kalinga, Apayao, and Bontoc. 
We have two organized churches in Benguet and 
seven churches in Amburayan, the capital of 
which is Tagudin. Last September we began 
work in Lepanto, and we now have one church 
there besides several other interested congrega- 
tions. A worker will soon be stationed at Cer- 
vantes, the capital of Lepanto, to carry the gospel 
farther back into the mountains. Aside from a 
little work being done by the Protestant Episcopal 
Church in Baguio, Benguet, and the sub-province 
of Bontoc, there is no evangelical work being 
done in the rest of this great Mountain Province. 

Ifugao, a sub-province containing one hundred 
and twenty-seven thousand pagan Igorots, lies 
adjacent to our work in Amburayan and Lepanto. 
This territory has never been assigned to any 
mission by the Evangelical Union. It would 
naturally fall to the Methodists or the United 
Brethren, inasmuch as it joins the territory of 
both these missions. Bishop Oldham, represent- 
ing the Methodist Episcopal Mission, has urged 
us to take the responsibility of this Ifugao 
country. 

Our Mission Council recommends that we im- 
mediately push our operations farther inland, 
thus adding a field of one hundred and twenty- 
seven pagan population to our present field. 

To occupy our entire field in any adequate way 
our Philippine Mission needs the following rein- 
forcements: A deaconess to assist Miss Weber 

86 



The Advancing Philippines 

to carry on the work in the Deaconess Training 
School ; a physician and later a nurse to minister 
to over three hundred thousand people who are 
now practically without the benefit of such work ; 
a man and wife, or a single man and a single 
woman to reinforce the general missionary work- 
ers. With the expansion of our work there is 
danger of being crippled by the temporary break- 
down of some of our missionaries. It is difficult 
even now for any of them to take a few days' 
vacation on account of the pressure work already 
begun. 

Union Christian College 

The need of a Christian college in the Philip- 
pines to provide higher education under Christian 
influence has become so pressing that all of the 
missions laboring in the islands have united in 
expressing their desire to establish such an insti- 
tution, A committee was appointed by the 
Evangelical Union (a union of the evangelical 
missions in the islands) for the purpose of draw- 
ing up a constitution and articles of incorporation. 
This constitution and the accompanying articles 
have been presented to all the missions for their 
consideration, and have been approved by the 
Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal, Bap- 
tist, Presbyterian, Christian, and United Brethren 
missions. 

This constitution provides that the $130,000 
needed to properly equip and establish this col- 



The Call of China and the Islands 

lege shall be contributed by the different missions, 
as follows: The Methodist Episcopal and the 
Presbyterian, each $33,000; the Baptist, Congre- 
gational, Christian, Protestant Episcopal, and 
United Brethren, each $15,000. Each mission 
shall pay two-fifths of its share at the time of the 
signing of the Articles of Incorporation, and the 
remainder in three annual payments. For the 
United Brethren Mission this would be $6,000, 
to be contributed in the beginning, and $3,000 
each year for three years. 

The committee of the Evangelical Union is 
now seeking to secure a satisfactory site for this 
Union Christian College. 

Union Bible Seminary 

This institution has been in operation in Ma- 
nila for several years. Our mission has officially 
united with the Presbyterian and Methodist 
Episcopal missions in this inspiring work. The 
only additional expense to our mission at present 
will be the rental of quarters for the students. 
When the Christian College is established it is 
hoped that the Bible Seminary will be perma- 
nently located in the vicinity of the said college, 
in order to permit the students of either institu- 
tion to take courses in the other, and also that 
certain instructors may be available for both. 

Other Union Projects 

Since Baguio, the summer capital of the Phil- 
ippines, is to be made an important center, it i$ 

m 




Missionaries in the Making, Philippines. 




Filipino Boys and Girls. 



^^^^^^^ 


jji-'ft^'fidl 


fegjM^^^M 


I^HP 


^ 




1 ■• .^ 


l^mipM 


'M 


>#■ 


1^^ 


x^ ^Bl 



Quarterly Conference and Business Meeting at Balaoan. 




Lay Delegates, U. B. Philippine Conference 



The Advancing Philippines 

recommended that a union church be estabHshed 
in Baguio as soon as possible. The probable 
outlay from our mission for this church building 
will be $1,500. 

Our mission recommends that we cooperate 
with other missions in the erection and equipment 
of a hostel at Baguio for missionaries' children, 
inasmuch as the government has offered to fur- 
nish a school building and provide a teacher as 
soon as twenty children are secured for the 
school. This is a matter of great importance. 

Missionaries in the Philippines favor as an 
ultimate goal, a United Evangelical Filipino 
Church, and they believe that the presentation 
of this ideal will greatly stimulate the progress 
of the gospel and the establishment of self-sup- 
porting churches. When the time is ripe for the 
organization of such a church, all the missions 
should cooperate with this Filipino Church, until 
it becomes sufficiently strong to support, direct, 
and extend its owm work, thus giving to these 
islands a pure, aggressive, evangelical church. 

The door is wide open for the extension of 
our work in the Philippines. No mission field 
on earth presents a more encouraging outlook 
than does this one. If our churches in America 
provide at once the reasonable equipment and 
reinforcements called for in this report, and 
which our Mission Board has unanimously voted, 
then before the next twenty-five years shall have 

89 



The Call of China and the Islands 

passed by we shall see the kingdom of God well 
established in our territory in the Philippines, 

A Closing Word 

I am deeply grateful to God and to the Church 
for having had the privilege of this visit to the 
mission fields of the Orient. More than can be 
expressed in words do I appreciate the devotion, 
the ability, and the unbounded hospitality of our 
missionaries in China, Japan, and the Philippines. 
At great personal sacrifice they cooperated most 
heartily to make the visit and the investigations 
produce permanent fruitage. 

I wish to record also the great assistance ren- 
dered by Dr. A. T. Howard, who accompanied 
me to China and the Philippines. His wide 
study of the ever-changing missionary problems 
of the Orient enabled him to enrich greatly our 
councils and platform meetings. 

It is my opinion that if we, as a Churchy put 
into execution at once the policies and advance 
steps recommended, we shall exert an influence 
for the unity and efficiency of the entire mission- 
ary work in the Orient, far beyond our numeri- 
cal and financial strength. 

As I witnessed the remarkable changes taking 
place, there came to mind again and again these 
lines : 

*'God is working his purpose out 
As year succeeds to year; 

90 



The Advancing Philippines 

God is working his purpose out. 

And the time is drawing near — 
Nearer and nearer drazvs the time, 

The time that shall surely be 
When the earth shall he filled with the glory of 
God 

As the waters cover the seaf 



91 



IV. 

Porto Rico, the most charming of the islands 
of the western tropics, is unique in being our 
nearest foreign mission. It is practically a for- 
eign field in the homeland. All the leaders in 
that island with whom I conferred agreed that 
the customs, traditional beliefs, and degradation 
of the Porto Ricans put them in a position of the 
greatest need of the gospel. The proximity of 
the island and the close relationship to the States 
through commercial intercourse and religious in- 
terest, bring to us at home corresponding oppor- 
tunities and responsibility. 

There are 1,200,000 inhabitants in Porto Rico, 
the large majority of whom live in rural districts 
and know little or nothing of Christ's real re- 
demptive work. 

The Door Wide Open 

Until fourteen years ago, Spain, in conjunction 
with the Roman Catholic Church, had kept the 
door closed against other nations and religions. 
Her exclusiveness was almost equal to that of 
ancient Judaism: no independence or religious 
liberty was allowed. Behind that closed door 
were Spanish tyranny and ecclesiastical oppres- 
sion, which kept the people in abject poverty, 
dense ignorance, and social degradation ; but God, 

92 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

in his providence, opened that closed door in 
1898, when the island passed into the hands of 
the United States Government. The people, 
weary of Spanish injustice and priesthood degen- 
eracy, were ready and waiting for Protestant 
Christianity, so that now the leading citizens, as 
a rule, actually hate the Catholic Church, and 
the mass of the people are hungry for the gospel 
and the Christ. 

This is the day of opportunity for the evan- 
gelization of Porto Rico and for the educational, 
social, moral, and religious transformation of the 
people of that interesting island. Even Catholi- 
cism has been deeply stirred by the aggressiveness 
and success of the missionaries, and is now trying 
to reform herself. The sooner we evangelize 
Porto Rico with the gospel and win the people to 
Christ, the more surely will Porto Rico be free 
from the tightening grasp of Catholicism and be 
able to propagate the Christian religion to the 
islands that sit by her side. 

Inspfxtion of the Field 

During my visit it was both my pleasure and 
profit to see much of the island. Railroads, auto- 
mobiles, and coaches transport one over the great 
roadways, along which are towns, villages, and 
playas; but it requires much walking and riding 
on Porto Rican horses to witness the phases of 
life in the mountain barrios. A visitor may travel 
only over the magnificent thoroughfares of the 

93 



The Call of China and the Islands 

island and stop at the cities as some have done, 
and get no idea of the real situation of the mul- 
titudes. I rode with our mission workers for 
days up into the mountains and down to the 
playas, where I preached in chapels and got an 
impression of the Christians in worship, as well 
as the needs and degradation of the lower classes. 
A like condition of physical and social degra- 
dation appeared in the back streets of the cities. 
One night I accompanied Mr. Drury to one of 
the densely populated portions of the city of 
Ponce, where his men's Bible class held a reli- 
gious service in the presence of poor, ignorant 
people, who pressed to the door and strained their 
necks to hear the gospel in sermon and song. To 
appreciate fully the needs and appealing condition 
of the people, one must visit the island in person. 

The Splendid Work of Our Government 

The United States Government is doing much 
to develop the natural resources of the island and 
to uplift and educate the people in the elements 
of American citizenship. Her splendid public- 
school system, including the University of' Porto 
Rico, besides schools of domestic science, agricul- 
ture, manual training, in addition to the all-im- 
portant and excellent work of the Christian mis- 
sionaries, are tending to prepare the people for 
independence and self-government. Porto Ricans 
are not fully ready for such government now, but 
they will be ready in the not distant future. 

94 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

Seeing a Porto Rican one day away up in the 
mountains studying American history and read- 
ing the lives of such American heroes and leaders 
as Franklin, Webster, Washington, Lincoln, 
Grant, and McKinley in English, I was convinced 
that in the future Porto Rico will be so developed, 
improved, enlightened, and Christianized that it 
will become a self-governing colony, and add 
another star to the States. 

The General Religious Situation 

While the evangelization of Porto Rico can, of 
course, never be accomplished without the direct 
preaching of Christ and his gospel, yet the Chris- 
tian teacher, the Christian doctor, and the Chris- 
tian business man are very helpful in reenforcing 
the missionaries and in laying foundations for 
permanent success. 

One of the shameful influences that operates 
to the detriment and difficulty of the Christian 
worker in Porto Rico now is the fact that so 
many godless Americans, who are on the island 
for mercenary purposes only, represent in their 
lives low moral and social ideals. 

But the successes achieved during the years of 
missionary operation far outweigh the discour- 
agements. The religious statistics of the evan- 
gelical missions of the island show one hundred 
and seventy-nine pastors, one hundred and fifty 
assistants, one hundred and eighty-six church 
organizations, two hundred and eighty Bible 

95 



*rhe Call of China and the Islands 

schools with fifteen thousand one hundred and 
forty-nine scholars, one hundred and thirty-two 
church houses and chapels with eleven thousand 
three hundred and fifty-nine members in full 
communion, the value of church property being 
$682,987. 

Our United Brethren Mission 

The location of our mission in the southern 
part of the island, with its headquarters at Ponce, 
is m.ost excellent. It is probably the most com- 
pact mission field on the island. Besides Ponce, 
a city of 30,000 inhabitants, our mission territory 
includes the towns of Yauco, Juana Diaz, Pen- 
uelas, and Guayanilla. These constitute the five 
districts under the superintendency of Rev. P. W. 
Drury, including contiguous rural territory, in 
which are many chapels and other places where 
our American and native workers hold services. 

Thirteen years ago. Rev. N. H. Huffman and 
his wife were our only missionaries on the island. 
We had no property, no buildings, no organiza- 
tions, no annual conference. Now we have nine 
American missionaries, eighteen Porto Rican 
preachers and deaconesses, fifteen organized 
churches, thirty-two other preaching places, thir- 
teen chapels and church buildings, thirty Sunday 
schools with an enrollment of one thousand five 
hundred and thirty-eight, and one thousand and 
sixty-six members in full communion, besides 
about five hundred who are candidates being 

96 




Public School, Juana Diaz. 




Coming Porto Rican Citizens. 
The band of the Yauco Public School. 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

trained for full membership. The value of our 
church property is $40,000. The total contribu- 
tions for the past year from our churches in 
Porto Rico was $2,197.81. 

Early in the past year a site for our mission 
headquarters at Ponce was purchased at a cost 
of three thousand dollars. It is situated near 
our church, on the same street. Then, with the 
two thousand five hundred dollars granted by the 
Board, a neat, commodious residence was erected 
on that site. It has nine rooms, with modern 
conveniences. Our printing office also is on the 
new premises. The plant is ideal, and with our 
church in Ponce gives us permanent and conven- 
ient headquarters. 

We have a charming rest home, the Mt. Her- 
mon Cottage, situated two thousand feet above 
the Caribbean Sea, in the mountains, twelve miles 
from Ponce, on the fine roadway to Arecibo. It 
was erected with the contributions from the Wom- 
an's Missionary Association of our Church. It 
is the best and most delightful investment I ever 
saw for the sum of $1,000. It was our privilege 
to spend a few days in that health-restoring 
mountain home, with its exhilarating atmosphere 
and beautiful scenery. 

There are two medical dispensaries carried on 
vmder the auspices of our mission. The one is 
at Yauco, in connection with Rev. N. H. Huff- 
man's pastorate ; the other at Coto Laurel, under 
the direction of Superintendent Drury. Hun- 

97 



The Call of China and the Islands 

dreds of affiicted men, women, and children come 
to those dispensaries for physical help and relief. 
Christian physicians from the States give their 
services free, and special funds are provided on 
the island v^ithout any expense to the mission. 
The method of medical missionary work, in 
which the hearts of the people are won to Christ 
and the Church through the power of practical 
Christianity, greatly commends itself to all broad 
Christian workers. 

An Aggressive Annual Conference 

It was my privilege to preside over our Porto 
Rico Annual Conference, January 12-14, at 
Ponce. I received a royal welcome from all the 
w^orkers. The attendance was large and the 
interest high to the end. The report of the 
superintendent showed an advance along all lines 
in accessions, Sunday-school enrollment, finances, 
new preaching places, and developed strength in 
the local churches. 

The spirit of enthusiasm, fellowship, and ag- 
gressive action prevailed throughout the sessions. 
The addresses of Superintendent Drury and all 
the American and native workers were of high 
order, and were worthy of an annual conference 
of our Church in the States. Though spoken in 
Spanish, the addresses were all translated to me 
in English. 

Our American missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. P, 
W. Drury, Mr. and Mrs. N. H. Huffman, Mr. 

98 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

and Mrs. I. E. Caldwell, Mr. and Mrs. C. I. 
Mohler, and Miss Elizabeth Reed, are all persons 
of fine character and excellent ability; well 
trained and thoroughly consecrated to the cause 
of Christ in their field, they have no superiors 
on the island. They profoundly impressed me 
as men and women of God, rich in experience, 
mighty in the Word, and heroic in their passion 
to win the people to Christ. 

The native workers also are consecrated, loyal 
Christians. They are intelligent, efficient preach- 
ers and deaconesses. Many of them have been 
trained in the high schools of Porto Rico, and 
therefore command the respect of the public. 
Our church houses and chapels are well con- 
structed and kept clean and attractive. 

Both the American and native missionaries are 
hard, self-sacrificing workers. Every day in the 
week they visit in the cities and ride over the 
rough mountain sides to preach in chapels and 
carry the gospel into private homes. 

Our Porto Rican Christians are being taught 
the principles of Christian stewardship, and are 
being trained to honor the Lord with a weekly 
oflfering for the support and extension of the 
gospel. Considering the poverty of the people, 
excellent progress is being made. During the 
past year a new chapel was erected at Rubias in 
the Yauco municipal district, with offerings from 
the native Christians, and at the annual confer- 
ence this year a special subscription of $225 was 

99 



The Call of China and the Islands 

taken. This, with church extension money on 
hand, assured the erection of another chapel, 
which will be the fifth built with funds contrib- 
uted by the churches of our mission. The total 
contributions towards self-support during 1911 
amounted to $2,197.81, an increase for the year 
of over twenty-five per cent. 

A great evangelistic campaign was planned for 
by the annual conference, and the goal of "1,000 
souls for Christ" was adopted for this year. 
Within three months after the conference, the 
superintendent reported that three hundred and 
fifty persons had publicly professed their faith 
in Jesus Christ. The pastors have organized 
these persons into classes for the purpose of giv- 
ing them the instruction necessary before they 
enter into full membership. 

Missionary Co-operation 

Missionary comity on the island is a feature of 
great practical interest. It needs to be rigidly and 
conscientiously adhered to. The needs are so 
great and the degraded condition of the thou- 
sands in the mountain barrios and back streets 
of the towns is so appalling and even shocking 
that there must be no duplication of agencies or 
waste of religious energy or money. 

I found a general agreement and cooperation 
upon the part of the evangelical denominations 
operating on the island. All the cities are open 
to any denomination, but the general division of 

100 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

territory is as follows : The Presbyterians occupy 
the west portion; the United Brethren in Christ 
the adjoining territory in the southern part of 
the island, with Ponce as headquarters ; the Meth- 
odists and Baptists the central portion; the Con- 
gregationalists the east; and the Lutherans the 
north. There is also an interdenominational 
council, which encourages general fraternization 
and cooperation. 

It is clear in Porto Rico that a united Catholi- 
cism has the advantage over a divided Protestant- 
ism, and the sectarian divisions are an element of 
weakness in all missionary enterprises. Dr. 
Howard B. Grose, who made a careful survey of 
the missionary outlook of Porto Rico, expresses 
it in a nutshell: ''A united Porto Rico Protest- 
antism is the only force that can successfully op- 
pose the Catholic Church and redeem the island.'' 

Two Union Projects 

I was charged by our Foreign Board to nego- 
tiate with the Presbyterians and Congregational- 
ists respecting a closer federation with our de- 
nomination in regard to a union printing plant 
and a union theological seminary. I am happy 
to report favorable results from these confer- 
ences. 

The first issue of the union paper, "Puerto 
Rico Evangelico," was published July 10, 1912. 
It is a semi-monthly publication of sixteen pages, 
issued on the tenth and twenty-fifth of each 

101 



The Call of China and the Islands 

month. It IS printed on our United Brethren 
press at Ponce, with Rev. Philo W. Drury as 
general editor and manager and with associate 
editors from the other two denominations. The 
subscription price is fifty cents a year. The aim 
is to secure 3,000 subscribers and thus make the 
paper self-supporting by the end of the year. 

This consummation of the plans for this union 
printing plant is a cause for much thanksgiving. 
The circulation of this common organ will bind 
the hearts of the Porto Rican Christians together 
and help to hasten the establishment of the king- 
dom in the island. 

The plan for the proposed Union Theological 
Seminary, to be located at Mayaguez, has been 
agreed upon by the representatives of the Pres- 
byterian and United Brethren missions, and is 
being considered by the members of the Congre- 
gational Mission. The school property will be 
held jointly. Our share of responsibility will be 
no more than $4,000 in cash and the furnishing 
of one of our missionaries as a member of the 
faculty, giving half of his time to that work. In 
the meantime the Presbyterians have generously 
agreed to receive our native workers into their 
school for training until this union enterprise 
shall be consummated. 

Such a union training school as is proposed is 
a great necessity for the thorough training of all 
native workers on the island, and it will be both 

102 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

in the interest of economy and broad missionary 
federation. 

Another Open Door 

Superintendent Drury and Rev. N. 11. Huff- 
man, last September, visited Santo Domingo, 
and found there a door which God has evidently 
opened to the Christian missionary. The island 
is only fifty-five miles from Porto Rico, a few 
hours' ride from Mayaguez. It has a population 
of 600,000. Its territory is eight times the size 
of Porto Rico. The people are as needy of the 
gospel as the Porto Ricans, and wholly unevan- 
gelized. The urgency for entering that open 
door at once rests upon the following arguments : 

1. Its close proximity to Porto Rico, being 
but fifty-five miles away. 

2. Its need of the gospel. 

3. Fifteen thousand Porto Ricans are living 
on that island now. In ten or fifteen years, ac- 
cording to the present rate of increase, the popu- 
lation of Porto Rico will reach two millions, 
which will be beyond its supporting resources and 
opportunities. Emigration will become a neces- 
sity, and the outflow will naturally be to Santo 
Domingo, where their kindred have settled. It 
is easy even now^ to interest Christian Porto 
Ricans in the evangelization of that island. Some 
are already offering their services as missionaries. 

4. This open door can be more economically 
entered from Porto Rico rather than directly 

103 



The Call of China and the Islands 

from the States. It can easily be under the 
administration of our superintendent in Porto 
Rico. It would simply widen our field in the 
Antilles, with the addition at present of one more 
missionary and probably a trained consecrated 
Porto Rican. 

5. Last, but not least, is the argument of an 
objective. Everything is favorable for the evan- 
gelization of Porto Rico within the present gen- 
eration, if the proper equipment and the neces- 
sary workers are secured. For self-preservation 
and the maintenance of the spiritual results of 
the investment of personality, sacrifice, and 
money put into Porto Rico, there must be a com- 
manding objective. The outflow of Christian 
life in that land must be as unselfish as it is in 
any Christian country under the law of divine 
love. 

Our Porto Rico Annual Conference last Jan- 
uary requested our Church to take action toward 
the starting of missionary operations in Santo 
Domingo, pledging itself to pay five hundred dol- 
lars during the year, beginning with January, 
1913, * 'provided the board deems it possible and 
wise to open up work there next year.'' This 
call to advance comes as a great challenge to 
our denomination. 

Pressing Needs 

There is imperative need for a church building 
in Yauco, the center of the Yauco municipal dis- 

104 



Beautiful Porto Rico 

trict. Our growing congregation in that thriving 
town is struggling with wholly inadequate mate- 
rial means for the carrying on of its important 
work. This should take precedence of all other 
building enterprises. Seven thousand dollars 
should be made available for this church house 
just as soon as possible. 

Other needs now pressing include our share in 
the Union Training School at Mayaguez, $4,000 ; 
the enlargement of present church buildings and 
the erection of small chapels, $2,000; missionary 
residence at Juan Diaz, $2,100; ground and mis- 
sionary residence at Penuelas, $2,500; total needs 
for new buildings and grounds, $23,100. 

A Closing Word 

In closing this report of my visit to Porto Rico, 
I wish to express my profound appreciation of 
the prayers and sympathy of our Church, both in 
Porto Rico and in the States. I am grateful to 
God for the marvelous preservation of our lives 
on the sea, and for whatever helpful service we 
were enabled to perform for our noble heroic 
workers of that interesting island. 

My heart goes out for the redemption of that 
"Garden Spot'' of the West Indies. Our denom- 
ination has done nobly in the past, but the present 
opportunities call for larger financial support of 
the work and for more earnest prayer for spirit- 
ual victories. The fields are ripe to harvest. 
There is no doubt about the outcome, if the work 

105 



The Call of China and the Islands 

is pushed vigorously now. Our missionaries are 
battling nobly against the mighty forces of ignor- 
ance, superstition, and evil, but God has prom- 
ised that the isles shall wait for him and on his 
arm shall they trust, so victory is assured. Let 
us all stir ourselves to come up to the help of the 
Lord against the mighty and thus win Porto Rico 
for our Christ. 



106 



V. 



fat S^IjaU Mt Wnr SrBpniiBr? 

The United Brethren Church has heard the 
call of God for laborers in lands across the seas. 
Sixty-six of our noblest sons and daughters are 
now witnessing for Christ in West Africa, Japan, 
China, the Philippines, and Porto Rico. No 
other denomination has better missionaries. 
Seven of our workers have yielded their lives as 
martyrs for the gospel. All of them have so 
wrought for the transformation of our foreign 
fields as to call forth the admiration of the whole 
Church. 

Though much of the labor of the past, of ne- 
cessity, has been preparatory — such as the mas- 
tery of new languages, the adaptation of the work- 
ers to new conditions, and the development of a 
native ministry — there has appeared already a 
large fruitage, as the following table shows : 

Seven Years' Growth Abroad 

1905 1912 Incr. 

Foreign missionaries 31 66 113% 

Communicant members 1,429 4,868 240% 

Sunday-school enrollment .... 2,243 6,026 170% 

Native gifts for self-support.. .$4,338 $13,239 200% 

The growth of our work abroad has produced 

a new challenge. It is now necessary for us to 

plan for the complete occupancy of our territory 

by Christian workers, and for the equipment of 

107 



The Call of China and the Islands 

the various departments of the work in order to 
insure the training and efficiency needed. 

Searching investigations were made and nu- 
merous councils were held with the missionaries 
in Porto Rico, Japan, China, and the Philippines, 
by Bishop Mathews and the General Secretary 
of the Foreign Board in their recent visits to 
these fields. As a result, the missionaries make 
two urgent requests of the home churches. First, 
that we send out soon eighteen additional mis- 
sionaries to assist in training a larger force of 
native leaders, and to open gospel work in pagan 
districts which range in population from one 
hundred thousand to five hundred thousand. 
The second request is for the equipment of the 
excellent work already begun. 

The call is for twenty-seven chapels, eight 
missionary residences, one hospital, one dispen- 
sary, and five school buildings, namely, a build- 
ing for the new grammer school for boys in 
China, a building for the larger Miller Seminary 
for girls in China, our share of the union train- 
ing school building in Porto Rico, a deaconess 
training school building in the Philippines, and 
our share of a union Christian college for the 
Philippines — the erection of these buildings to 
cover a period of from three to five years. The 
total cost for the new buildings and equipment 
will be $207,350. It is highly important that 
$60,000 of this building fund should be forth- 

108 



What Shall Be Our Response 

coming immediately, that the buildings urgently 
needed may be started at once. 

It is the conviction of the missionaries on the 
field and those who made these visits that the 
program recommended is the will of God for our 
work abroad at this time. After the visitation 
in Africa, soon to be made, a statement will be 
given of the needs of that field. 

The deputations brought the call of the mis- 
sionaries for this enlargement of work to the 
recent Board meeting at Harrisburg, Pa., and 
after carefully considering it, the bishops and 
directors of the Foreign Missionary Society 
unanimously approved the report and expressed 
their conviction in these words: 

''This program calling for new missionaries 
and equipment abroad should call out the most 
heroic efforts ever put forth by any of our local 
churches for this work. In our own strength it 
will be utterly impossible to accomplish it; but 
our God is able. We call upon every pastor, as 
he presents these needs to his people, that he 
challenge them to give themselves as never before 
to the mighty ministry of intercession, as well as 
to the complete consecration of themselves and 
their gifts to this end!' 
What Will the Pastors and Churches Do 

The missionaries on the field have acted. The 
Board of Foreign Missions has acted. The call 
now comes to the conference superintendents, the 
pastors, local churches, and individual men and 

109 



The Call of China and the Islands 

women in our churches. What will you do 
with it? 

Dr. A. T. Howard has been appointed super- 
intendent of the Orient to cooperate with the 
missionaries in Japan, China, and the PhiHppines 
to carry out the immense work outHned for these 
fields. They are now at work securing building 
sites. The Board members are at work doing 
their part to reach the goal. 

If the pastors and all the local churches act 
promptly and adequately, we shall have a united, 
powerful movement to evangelize our share of 
the non-Christian world. This generation of 
United Brethren never before faced such an 
opportunity. Let us go up at once and possess 
the land for Christ, for we are well able to do it. 

The Cost 

1. It will cost earnest thought and hard work. 
To inform the ignorant in our home churches, to 
awaken the indififerent, to enlist the prejudiced, 
and to get every member to read this call and 
act upon it will be no easy task. Pastors and 
laymen whose hearts are gripped by the facts 
presented in this book have hard work to do. 

We must constantly remember that the foreign 
missionary enterprise is no child's play. Our 
missionaries are hazarding their very lives for 
Jesus' sake and some of them are breaking under 
the strain of their work. One who has been fight- 
ing malaria while carrying the work of two men, 

110 



What Shall Be Our Response 

writes: "I cannot see any prospects of relief. 
V-/e cannot let go anywhere without endangering 
results. You know we are now in the hot season 
when travel and toil produce severe strain. I 
do not know how long I shall be able to stand 
this." 

Heroic labor for this cause must not be con- 
fined to those at the front. To create an atmos- 
phere in our home churches for world evangeli- 
zation, and to achieve increasing success for this 
work right through a series of years, requires 
courage, wisdom, and perseverance. A high 
grade of pastoral leadership and first-class lay 
cooperation are absolutely essential. 

2. It will cost fervent, continuous praying. 
Not by unaided human effort, but by the power 
of God is this work promoted. Prayer is the 
agency that couples Christ's power to the work. 
Our missionaries recognize this need and are 
calling us to prayer. A letter from Africa just 
received voices this call : ''The devil is marshal- 
ling all his strong forces against Africa. Danger 
signals are sounding. I hear the tread of the 
feet of Satan's advancing army and we must get 
ready for the battle. If it were in my power 
to do so, I would have the whole Church on her 
knees for Africa." Similar appeals come from 
the other fields. Therefore, let us pray as never 
before for the missionaries and the work abroad. 

Pray also for the bishops, conference super- 
intendents, and your own pastor that these 

111 



The Call of China and the Islands 

leaders may discern God's will in this unprece- 
dented call, and stand for such a program of 
work as shall enable every local church and every 
member in our denomination to do a great work 
for God. Pray! for God will hear and answer 
prayer. Prayer alone will transmute informa- 
tion into inspiration, and coin interest into pur- 
pose, plan, money, and lives ready to obey God. 

3. It will cost money. It is more difficult 
and costly to pray aright for the work and work- 
ers than to give money to this cause, but every 
Christian should do both. Money can work 
where the giver cannot. It can speak the gospel 
through every language where missionaries are 
at work. It can build chapels and hospitals. 
Money is a mighty factor in prompting the king- 
dom of God. 

To meet the extraordinary situation which now 
confronts our Church abroad, one hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars annually for the regular 
work of the various departments of foreign mis- 
sions will be required, or an increase of fifty per 
cent, in our gifts to this cause. 

In addition to this there is the call for $207,350 
for grounds, buildings, and equipment. This 
may seem a large sum, but it should be remem- 
bered that these new buildings will supply the 
need in four of our foreign fields where there 
are four million people to be reached. The total 
amount asked for is less than the cost of three 
United Brethren churches in this country dedi- 

112 




'^^ 






m\ 



I! 



El Pino U. B. Chapel. 

Built with funds contributed by the Pcrto Rican United 
Brethren Churches. 




Mt. Hermon Rest Cottage, Porto Rico. 
The gift of our loyal women in the States. 



What Shall Be Our Response 

cated this year. We are not asking one local 
church to supply this need, but the entire denom- 
ination, and that within a period of five years. 
Nothing could bring a greater blessing to the 
three hundred thousand members of the United 
Brethren Church in America than the whole- 
hearted acceptance of this call as the least we 
dare attempt in this day of golden opportunity. 

It is said that two-thirds of the human race 
live in the darkness of non-Christian lands. But 
a serious fact nearer home is this, that two-thirds 
of the members of our churches in America are 
without a vision of the world's need, and have 
no serious regard or recognition of God's right- 
ful claim upon their money and their talents, and 
hence they give but little or nothing for the ex- 
tension of the kingdom of God at home or 
abroad. Has not God himself brought us face 
to face with this mighty task abroad to drive us 
to our knees, to a confession of our sins and 
indifference, to restored fellowship with himself, 
and to the discovery of our mighty resources in 
Jesus Christ? 

This call from abroad coupled with the larger 
aim for our colleges, seminary, and home mis- 
sionary work in America will constitute the out- 
let, the very draft necessary to cause the Chris- 
tian stewardship fires that are now smouldered 
in our churches to blaze forth into a white heat. 
Thousands of our people, where now only hun- 
dreds are doing it, will bring their tithes and 

113 



The Call of China and the Islands 

free-will offerings to the altars of our churches, 
and we shall have sufficient money not only for 
these needs abroad, but for the adequate equip- 
ment and endowment of our schools and for the 
enlargement of all the work in America. The 
leaders of the Church are responsible for putting 
before the whole membership such tasks as will 
admit of no excuse for withholding from the 
Lord the tithes and free-will offerings. 

Every member of the Church should have a 
share in gifts for the regular work abroad. 
Some can give one hundred dollars, others fifty, 
twenty-five, ten, and five dollars annually, and 
the goal will be reached. 

To provide the new buildings and equipment 
called for, there are individual men and women 
in many of the congregations who will be glad 
to give a thousand dollars, or two thousand five 
hundred dollars to erect a memorial church in 
the midst of ten thousand or twenty-five thousand 
people abroad where ours is the only Christian 
church. 

The layman from Iowa who sent us last year 
a check for four thousand five hundred dollars 
to build a hospital in Siu Lam, China, has done 
a work that will witness for God from genera- 
tion to generation. Surely God will stir the 
heart of some one to send us five thousand dol- 
lars for the new hospital now needed in the 
Philippine Islands to provide medical treatment 

114 



What Shall Be Our Response 

for three hundred thousand destitute people in 
our district. 

4. It will cost lives. We need eighteen new 
missionaries. When these are sent abroad we 
shall have eighty-four foreign missionaries in the 
midst of five million people, or one missionary 
to every sixty thousand to be evangelized. This 
will mean the sending out of but one missionary 
for every three thousand five hundred of our 
Church membership in United States. Can we 
not spare one out of three thousand five hundred 
for this important work? And will not those 
who remain at home be enriched in faith and 
good works by the obedience of those who go to 
the front? 

John R. Mott says: "No better thing could 
happen on behalf of our city and rural evangeli- 
zation schemes than to have a great uprising such 
as we have never known on behalf of the foreign 
fields ; for the history of the church teaches 
clearly that the missionary epochs have been the 
ones which have most stimulated and purified the 
church on the home field." 

We shall need not only the eighteen new mis- 
sionaries, but recruits to take the place of those 
who from time to time fall in battle. With vast 
multitudes coming out of centuries of darkness, 
calling for Christian leaders, when did young 
men and women face such an opportunity as we 
now bring to them for service abroad? May 
scores of our young people enter into the joy 

lis 



The Call of China and the Islands 

and fellowship of Jesus Christ as Mrs. Howard 
Taylor did, when she went as a missionary to 
China. She said: "There came a summer day 
to me when, all alone, reading the second and 
third chapters of Philippians, Jesus Christ lifted 
upon my soul a vision and showed me this, that 
life offered me now an opportunity that heaven 
itself could never give. Christ seemed to say, 
'Will you ever in those bright, endless ages to 
come, be able to weep for me, to be lonely for my 
sake, to give up anything for me ? Will you ever 
again have the opportunity of entering a little 
bit into my suffering — all that Calvary meant to 
me?' 

"I looked into his face and said: 'O Lord, I 
want that, I want it now, and cost what it may, 
I want to follow thee.' The Lord led me and 
I followed him, and went to China, and looking 
up into his face could say, 'O Christ, all is clear 
now between my heart and thee, all is clear now.' 
Oh, the flood of joy that came to my heart as he 
seemed to draw nearer than he had ever been 
before!" 

It is for joy like that in all our local churches 
throughout America that we plead. This call is 
not for foreign missionaries alone, but for every 
layman in the Church at home to consecrate his 
life, his business ability, as well as his money for 
the extension of the kingdom of Christ. There 
is but one thing that will bring this supreme fel- 
lowship. It is to form a partnership with Jesus 

116 



What Shall Be Our Response 

Christ to work with him through life — on the fir- 
ing line at the front if prepared for it; but if 
you remain at home, then be equally devoted to 
Jesus Christ to make the Church a dynamo for 
the evangelization of America and of the world. 
Christian laymen are discovering that there is no 
substitute for the joy of Christian service. One 
thoroughly enlisted writes: "We have found 
God's service a keen delight, and some of us 
never knew before what exhilaration there is in 
cutting expenses for the sake of defeating the 
devil. There has been real excitement of soul 
in taking hold of God's plans and watching the 
answers to our prayers.*' 

Let Us Now Act 

As I journeyed through Japan, China, and 
the Philippines, I saw at close range souls being 
led out of darkness into the light of God, and 
new churches being organized out of raw pa- 
gans who were recently converted to Jesus Christ. 
A sense of awe came over me as I realized that 
right before my eyes was taking place in China, 
and in the entire Orient, that great transforma- 
tion which took place thirteen centuries ago in 
England and Germany, when Christian mission- 
aries entered those countries and preached for 
the first time the gospel of Christ to our pagan 
ancestors, some of whom they found eating 
human flesh. 

117 



The Call of China and the Islands 

The mighty change and uplift that came to 
England, Germany, and later to the United States 
through the gospel is now coming to one-third 
of the human race who live on the western rim 
of the Pacific. As I witnessed the mighty works 
of God and saw the vast unoccupied fields, and 
noted the paucity of the laborers and the changes 
that are sweeping with cyclonic power and rapid- 
ity over the far East, the conviction fastened 
itself upon me with giant grip that this is the 
time of all times to plant Christianity as a per- 
manent controlling power in the Orient. 

''0 Zion, haste thy mission high fulfilling, 
To tell to all the world that God is light; 

That he who made all nations is not willing 
One soul should perish lost in shades of night. 

''Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious; 
Give of thy wealth to speed them on their way, 
Pour out thy soul for them in prayer victorious; 
And all thou spendest Jesus will repay,'' 

S. S. Hough, 
Secretary. 



118 



Appptt&tx 



Books for Further Investigation 

General — 

"Open Doors/' the annual report of the Foreign 
Miss^ lary Society for 1911-1912. 10 cents. 

"Our Ibreign Missionary Enterprise," by Mills, 
Funk, Hough. Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 35 cents. 

Report of the Edinburgh World Missionary Con- 
ference, 10 volumes. $5.00, express extra. 

"The Decisive Hour of Christian Missions," by 
John R. Mott. Cloth, 58 cents; paper, 43 cents. 

China — 

"The Uplift of China," Revised Edition, 1912, by 

Arthur H. Smith. Cloth, 58 cents; paper, 43 

cents. 
"The Changing Chinese," by E. A. Ross. Perhaps 

the most readable of the recent books. $2.50. 
"The Education of Women in China," by Margaret 

E. Burton. $1.25. 

Japan — 

"Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom," by John H. De 

Forest. Cloth, 58 cents; paper, 43 cents. 
"Japan and Its Regeneration," by Otis Cory. 

Cloth, 58 cents; paper, 43 cents. 

Philippines — 

"A New Era in the Philippines," by Arthur J. 
Brown. $1.25. 
Porto Rico — 

"Advance in the Antilles," by H. B. Grose. Cloth, 
58 cents; paper, 43 cents. 

Africa — 

"Daybreak in the Dark Continent," revised edition, 

1912. By W. S. Naylor. Cloth, 58 cents; paper, 

43 cents. 
"Fetichism in West Africa," by R. H. Nassau. 

$2.50. 

120 



For Pastors and Missionary Committees — 

"The Church Missionary Committee." 5 cents. 
"A World Cycle of Prayer." 10 cents. 
'^Foreign Mission Study Circular.*' Free. 
The New Share Plan Pamphlet. Free. 

Missionary Map of the World, 9 feet x 5 feet. 

$3.00. 
"Manual of Missionary Methods for Sunday 

School Workers," by G. H. Trull. 50 cents. 
Chart: "Our Task Abroad.*' 25 cents. 
Set of six Missionary Charts, 36 x 44 inches, printed 

in two colors. On Map Bond Paper, $1.00; on 

cloth-backed paper, $2.00. 

Leaflets for careful distribution. For samples and 
any of the above books, address, 

FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 

1003 U. B. Building, 

Dayton, Ohio. 



121 



FORM OF WILL OR BEQUEST 

For those who desire the correct form for a be- 
quest to the Foreign Missionary Society, we suggest 
the following: 

"I do give and bequeath the sum of 

dollars to the Foreign Missionary Society of the 
United Brethren in Christ, a corporation existing 
under the laws of the State of Ohio/' 

Or, if the bequest be of real estate, as follows: 

"I do give, devise, and bequeath all that (here 
describe the property) to the Foreign Missionary 
Society of the United Brethren in Christ, a corpor- 
ation existing under the laws of the State of Ohio." 

ANNUITY PLAN 

Those who wish their money to go finally to the 
foreign missionary cause, and who cannot afford as 
yet to be deprived of the income, are asked to con- 
sider the annuity plan of the Foreign Missionary 
Society. Wills are sometimes broken and bequests 
to missionary societies are lost. By giving your 
money to the Board while you live, you become your 
own executor and avoid the risk of subsequent diver- 
sion of the funds. The annuity plan allows you a 
reasonable rate of interest for your money every, six 
months as long as you live. 

Correspondence concerning the above plan should 
be addressed to S. S. Hough, General Secretary of 
the Foreign Missionary Society, 1003 U. B. Building, 
Dayton, Ohio. 



122 



"LIVINGSTONE the 
PATHFINDER" 

by BASIL MATHEWS 
For 

Boys and Girls 



The book tells of this hero's adventures 
among the wild beasts and savage men, 
his perilous journeys by canoe and on ox- 
back, along the rivers and through the 
tangled forests of Africa, where no white 
man had ever been before. 

Twenty-Four Pages of Pictures 



READY IN JANUARY 



Cloth 50c, paper 35c, postage 8c 



FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY 
1003 U. B. BuUding DAYTON, OHIO 



-2-rfr- 




029 557 606 6 




